AFRICA INFRASTRUCTURE COUNTRY DIAGNOSTIC: Urban Water Supply Africa

Description

AFRICA INFRASTRUCTURE COUNTRY DIAGNOSTIC: Urban Water Supply Africa

With only 56 percent of the population enjoying access to safe water, Sub-Saharan Africa lags behind other regions in terms of access to improved water sources. Based on present trends, it appears that the region is unlikely to meet the target of 75 percent access to improved water by 2015, as specified in the Millennium Development Goals. The welfare implications of safe water cannot be overstated. The estimated health and time-saving benefits of meeting the MDG goal are as much as $3.5 billion, or about 11 times as high as the associated costs.
Monitoring the progress of infrastructure sectors such as water supply has been a significant byproduct of the MDGs, and serious attention and funding have been devoted in recent years to developing systems for monitoring and evaluating in developing countries. Thanks to the efforts of the WHOUNICEF Joint Monitoring Program (JMP) on water supply and sanitation (WSS), access trends are now
comparatively well understood. However, there is still relatively little understanding of how African water utilities actually perform, and the state of the reform process in the sector. This study draws on a new WSS database compiled as part of the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic. The database collects primary data on institutional development and sector performance in 50 utilities across 23 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. We use it here to present a snapshot of the current situation