With only 56 percent of the populationenjoying access to safe water, Sub-Saharan Africa lagsbehind other regions in terms of access to improved watersources. Based on present trends, it appears that the regionis unlikely to meet the target of 75 percent access toimproved water by 2015, as specified in the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDG). The welfare implications of safewater cannot be overstated. The estimated health andtime-saving benefits of meeting the MDG goal are about 11times as high as the associated costs. Monitoring theprogress of infrastructure sectors such as water supply hasbeen a significant by-product of the MDG, and seriousattention and funding have been devoted in recent years todeveloping systems for monitoring and evaluating indeveloping countries. Piped water reaches more urbanAfricans than any other form of water supply-but not aslarge a share as it did in the early 1990s. The most recentavailable data for 32 countries suggests that some 39percent of the urban population of Sub-Saharan Africa isconnected to a piped network, compared with 50 percent inthe early 1990s. Analysis suggests that the majority ofthose who lack access to utility water live too far awayfrom the distribution network, although some fail to connecteven when they live close by. Water-sector institutionsfollow no consistent pattern in Sub-Saharan Africa. Whereservice is centralized, a significant minority has chosen tocombine power and water services into a single nationalmulti-utility urban water sector reforms were carried out inthe 1990s, with the aim of creating commercially orientedutilities and bringing the sector under formal regulation.One goal of the reforms was to attract private participationin the sector.
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