Water Supply
How can water utilities provide reliable water to poor people in African cities ?
By Chris Heymans co-authors : Rolfe Eberhard , David Ehrhardt , Shannon Riley also adopted new technologies such as prepaid standpipes and mobile self-metering and payment , and improvised to overcome barriers that prevent them from supplying water to informal areas . For instance , the National Water and Sanitation Office ( L ’ Office national de l ’ eau et de l ’ assainissement , ONEA ) in Ouagadougou works with small providers to deliver services where the utility cannot due to land tenure rules .
Urban Africa : Rapidly growing and densifying . Photo Credit : Kathy Eales / World Bank
Sustainable Development Goal ( SDG ) 6 targets
“ universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all ”. However , in Africa ’ s fast-growing cities , just accessing water is a daily struggle for many poor families . While Africa ’ s urban population is expected to triple by 2050 , the proportion of people with improved water supply has barely grown since 1990 , and the share of those with water piped to their premises has declined from 43 percent in 1990 to 33 percent in 2015 . Poor families bear the brunt of these inadequacies through poor health , the long time required to collect water , and higher costs when purchasing from on-sellers ’.
However , some cities stand out as exceptions . What can we learn from cities and utilities that successfully provide reliable and safe water to almost all of their inhabitants ? A study I led recently , Providing Water to Poor People in African Cities Effectively : Lessons from Utility Reforms , analyzed how the water utilities in Kampala , Nyeri , Dakar , Ouagadougou and Durban achieved stand-out performance , and how this made a difference for the poor people in these cities .
In these cities , improving financial performance was critical to effective and sustainable provision . The utilities charged tariffs that recovered their costs and implemented strategies to effectively collect revenues , while ensuring that services were affordable for their customers , especially poor households . A variety of pro-poor strategies were employed , such as carefully designed rising block tariff structures and cross-subsidies for residential consumption , and capping on-sellers ’ mark-ups . They
Effective management was essential in achieving the above . In each case , effective management resulted from a reform of the utility , which moved from poor performance to relatively good performance . We also found three key characteristics of successful reforms in each case -- a catalytic event , a skilled and motivated manager , and a confident political leader who supported and protected reform .
In Ouagadougou and Dakar , the catalytic events were water resource shortages ; in Durban , the end of apartheid in South Africa created the political impetus to redress service inequalities . Capable utility managers charted the way by addressing urgent needs first , combining technical and financial strategies with institutional reform and winning political support . Outsiders cannot create such conditions , although in some cases development partners have contributed technical advice and financing .
The World Bank at World Water Week 2016
Making reforms sustainable is as challenging as getting them started . As utilities provide better service , they gain more resources and become more tempting targets for predation . Yet , success can also be the first line of defense . Proven competence in service delivery can win support from external stakeholders and raise the political costs of predation . Nyeri ’ s water utility demonstrates how , when allegations of political meddling surfaced , citizens called to ask how they could prevent it .
Africa Water , Sanitation & Hygiene • September - October 2016 11