Saroj Kumar Jha, of the World Bank, shares his insights on the measures needed to achieve global delivery of safe water and sanitation.
A business-as-usual scenario to achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs) related to water would not see West Africa achieve access to a universal safe water supply until 2112, warned Saroj Kumar Jha in his Plenary Keynote at IWA’s World Water Congress & Exhibition, held in Toronto, Canada, last year.
This shocking figure he attributed first to a lack of global political attention. Travelling across the world in his role as Global Director and Head of Water Global Practice for the World Bank, he noted that, when meeting Prime Ministers, Presidents and Ministers of Finance, water is rarely on their agenda. With the water access gap widening rather than closing in most African countries, Jha’s concern was that, by the 2030 deadline set to achieve the SDGs, the developing world is likely to have more people without clean water and sanitation than at the beginning of this decade.
Lack of investment
Citing the results of the World Bank’s Public Expenditure Review, published ahead of the 10th World Water Forum in 2024, Jha highlighted the extremely low levels of investment in water from the 130 developing countries analysed. On average, the review found that the government spend on water of the countries assessed was just 1.2% of annual budget, compared with 5% on transport, 4% on agriculture, and “much larger volumes on energy”, with Jha cautioning that “there are countries in Africa and Asia that were found to have spent less than 0.5% of their annual budget on water”. His opening message to delegates was that it is extremely important “that we collectively continue to make a strong political case on why governments should invest in water” if there is to be any traction on the goal of delivering global access to safe water and sanitation.
Limited technology take-up
The second key factor to the success of this goal is the adoption of technology to enable water and sanitation services to be rolled out at scale. Jha said that, of all the work in which the World Bank is engaged – across the many areas of economies where the government and private sector are working together – the level of technology penetration in the water sector is one of the lowest. “Technology is the multiplier factor in terms of the scale and impact that we want to see – cutting down the costs and increasing the impact,” he said. “If we do not bring technology into the water sector then we have a serious problem.”
Gaps in governance and capacity
He considered the third challenge to be governance, which he regards as the most important concern, because of the lack of a unified approach to handling water as a resource across different levels of government, in different countries. This is coupled with a lack of capacity within water organisations. Jha explained: “I was recently visiting a large municipality trying to see how the water supply and sanitation is managed. This is a very large municipality of 400,000 people. I asked the water officer showing me around how many staff they have to manage the water for 400,000 people. She answered one and a half – the second person only worked part-time.”
Poor regulation
Progress is further stymied by lack of regulation. Jha said: “Most developing countries either do not have a regulator or they have a regulator in name only, so they do not have the level of autonomy, capacity, and independence that they need to be able to regulate properly.”
Turning to the World Bank, he said: “Our scorecard on financing water is less than promising. Like governments, we work in many different areas. Has water really been a priority for us? It is really not in terms of our total volume of financing. It will come 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th from the top.”
Evolution roadmap
Amid this challenging picture, Jha sees hope in the reform of the multilateral development banks to provide more support to developing countries to deal with the multiple crises thwarting progress. “At the World Bank we call this an evolution roadmap, to do everything possible to provide more resources, knowledge and financing to countries to try to deal with all these challenges,” he said.
As part of this process, the World Bank Group adopted a new vision last year. Jha explained: “Our vision before was ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity. That has been revised to ending poverty on a liveable planet.” Here, a liveable planet is defined as a planet where people have access to clean water, clean air and clean energy. Jha explained that this new approach has been a gamechanger. He said: “We are seeing the impact of this change across the organisation and at all levels of our leadership. It has become so much easier for me to engage with our leadership about water. People can see the connection that when you work on water you help fulfil the vision and mission of this multilateral organisation.”
In addition, recognising that many countries are experiencing the dual challenge of water scarcity and a water access gap, the World Bank launched the Fast-track Water Security and Climate Adaptation Global Challenge programme. This aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge by providing an accelerated pathway supported by traditional financing from the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, and using these resources to leverage further investment from the private sector.
Singapore knowledge hub
To bolster resources in terms of expertise, the World Bank has recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Singapore government and established the Singapore Water Center – launched through a partnership between the World Bank Group and the government of Singapore – which serves as a pivotal initiative dedicated to advancing global water management practices. Fostering innovation, knowledge exchange, and capacity development among policymakers, utility managers and stakeholders in the water sector, the Center aims to address pressing water security challenges, both regionally and globally.
Route to success
Returning to his opening message calling for a continued and collective push to make the political case for water and sanitation, Jha said: “Today, nobody needs to be told the importance of investing in climate resilience. So, now is the time for the water sector to double down on this and really make a case for why water is so important for economic development and for protecting development gains, and to ensure that the poor do not slide back even further when disasters hit.”
Ending on a note of hope, Jha described himself as optimistic that global leaders can change the trajectory with regards to universal access across water supply, sanitation and irrigation, and, with this, protect communities from extreme events caused by water-related disasters. By bringing together key stakeholders, encouraging governments to establish national water platforms, and taking a more unified approach to the challenges of our times, he believes that we can seize the opportunities offered by improved resource management, new thinking on urban water management, and new processes for water reclamation and reuse.
Although the challenges are great, so are the rewards. The take home from Jha’s Plenary Keynote was that now is the time to shift the narrative from failure to success by moving from the current model to smarter routes of finance and delivery, to ensure that populations across the world receive access to safe water and sanitation in a timely and sustainable fashion.
