Citywide Inclusive Water Supply : Adopting Off-Grid Solutions to Achieve the SDGs

Misra, Smita ; Kingdom, Bill

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: DRINKING WATER;    URBAN WATER MANAGEMENT;    WATER AND SANITATION;    WATER UTILITIES;    WATER SUPPLY;   

RP-ID  :  138602

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Today about 676 million urban residents,many of them poor, do not have access to the JointMonitoring Programme (JMP) definition of "safelymanaged" water supplies. They receive an off-grid watersupply service that is not safely managed, accessible, oraffordable, and thus not compliant with SustainableDevelopment Goal (SDG) 6.1. If the rate of providing pipedsupplies over the last 15 years continues for another 15years, and the urban population increases as projected by1.2 billion, then the current 676 million will be joined bya further 300 million by 2030. Therefore, by 2030, nearly 1billion individuals, primarily in South Asia and Sub-SaharanAfrica, will be forced to rely on off-grid supplies that arenot safely managed. These troubling numbers exclude thesignificant population classified as rural but live on theperiphery of urban areas and have urban characteristics andaspirations. Not only are off-grid customers increasing butthey are also concentrated in the poorer segments ofsociety. An analysis of 75 low-income countries (LICs) inAsia, Africa, and Latin America shows that more than 68percent of these customers come from the bottom two wealthquintiles (the poor and the poorest). Within these regions,many countries (24 of these 75 countries) have more than 80percent such off-grid users from poor and poorestcategories. The sector's single-minded focus on pipedservice delivery is insufficient to meet the challenges ofproviding safe water supplies due to endemic governance,efficiency, and financing challenges. These problems,coupled with policy, land tenure, and related issues in thebroader urban environment, all conspire to leave poorhouseholds without access to piped water supplies—a problemthat will continue. A laissez-faire attitude prevails in thesector, leaving off-grid customer to fend for themselves.Traditional (piped) solutions alone will not achieve SDG 6.1by 2030 in providing safely managed water that is accessibleat the household level and is affordable to customers. It iscritical to re-examine the traditional focus on adding pipedconnections. Policy makers and others in the sector shouldexplore how off-grid solutions could be"reimagined" as a complementary solution.