The investments needed to deliver sustainable water and sanitation services, including the funds that are needed to operate and maintain the infrastructure, expand their coverage and upgrade service delivery to meet current social and environmental expectations, are huge. Yet, most systems are underfunded with dire consequences for water and sanitation users, especially the poorest. Providing sustainable drinking water supply and sanitation services requires sound financial basis and strategic financial planning to ensure that existing and future financial resources are commensurate with investment needs as well as the costs of operating and maintaining services. Some of the key messages of this report are: WSS generate substantial benefits for the economy Investment needs to generate these benefits are large in both OECD and developing countries Tariffs are a preferred funding source, but public budgets and ODA will have a role to play, too Markets-based repayable finance is needed to cover high up-front capital investment costs Strategic financial planning and other OECD tools can help Governments move forward

The investments needed to deliver sustainable water and sanitation services are huge, yet most systems are underfunded. This book provides practical tools for investment and financial planning related to water.

Investments in water and sanitation are a prerequisite to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular on SDG 6 ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. Blended finance can play an important role in strategically investing development finance to mobilise additional commercial finance needed to fill the current investment gaps. Thus far, however, blended finance has not reached scale in the water and sanitation sector. A greater evidence base is needed to better understand the current applications as well as the potential of blended models in the water and sanitation sector. This publication takes a commercial investment perspective and provides insights into three subsectors: (1) water and sanitation utilities, (2) small-scale off-grid sanitation and (3) multi-purpose water infrastructure and landscape-based approaches. The publication draws out recommendations for policy makers and practitioners to apply and scale innovative blended finance approaches where most appropriate.

Water policies around the world are in urgent need of reform. Despite improvements in some sectors and countries, progress on meeting national, regional and international goals for managing and securing access to water for all has been uneven. Rallying policymakers around a positive water reform agenda needs to be a high priority and calls for strong political commitment and leadership. This report on Meeting the Water Reform Challenge brings together key insights from recent OECD work and identifies the priority areas where governments need to focus their reform efforts. It calls for governments to focus on getting the basics of water policy right. Sustainable financing, effective governance, and coherence between water and sectoral policies are the building blocks of successful reform.

This paper focuses on how to improve the development and management of water resources while providing the principles that link resource management to the specific water-using sectors. In 1993 the Board of the World Bank endorsed a Water Resources Management Policy Paper. In that paper, and this Strategy, water resources management is seen to comprise the institutional framework; management instruments; and the development, maintenance and operation of infrastructure. The paper looks at the dynamics of water and development. It builds on the 1993 policy paper, evaluating current scenarios and looking at future options and their implications both for government policy and the World Bank.

The world's freshwater resources are coming under growing pressure through such environmental hazards as human waste, urbanization, industrialization, and pesticides. The problems are exacerbated through drought in many parts of the world. The improvement of the water quality itself and access to it have been major concerns for politicians and development agencies for over a decade. First officially formulated at the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, they have been restated or expanded since then. The UN Millennium Declaration of 2000 transformed general guidelines into specific targets. The international community pledged "to halve by 2015 the proportion of people who are unable to reach, or to afford, safe drinking water" and "to stop the unsustainable exploitation of water resources, by developing water management strategies at the regional, national and local levels, which promote both equitable access and adequate supplies." Thus, ten years after Rio it is time to take stock. Based on the collective inputs of 23 United Nations agencies and convention secretariats, this Report offers a global overview of the state of the world's freshwater resources. It is part of an on-going assessment process to develop policies and help with their implementation as well as to measure any progress towards achieving sustainable use of water resources. Generously illustrated with more than 25 full-color global maps and numerous figures, the report reviews progress and trends and presents seven pilot case studies of river basins representing various social, economic and environmental settings: Lake Titicaca (Bolivia, Peru); Senegal river basin (Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Guinea); Seine Normandy (France); Lake Peipsi/Chudskoe (Estonia, Russia); Ruhuna basin (Sri Lanka); Greater Tokyo region (Japan); and Chao Phraya (Thailand). It assesses progress in 11 challenge areas, including health, food, environment, shared water resources, cities, industry, energy, risk management, knowledge, valuing water and governance. Proposing methodologies and indicators for measuring sustainability, it lays the foundations for regular, system-wide monitoring and reporting by the UN, together with the development of standardized methodologies and data. With its comprehensive maps, glossary, references and coverage of a broad range of themes and examples of real-world river basins, the UN World Water Development Report will no doubt prove to be a most valuable reference work. Visit the United Nation's Water Portal for more information on the report and on the International Year of Freshwater 2003.

Building on the main water challenges identified by the OECD Environment Outlook to 2050, this report examines financing of the water sector; the governance and institutional arrangements that are in place; and coherence between water policies and policies in place in other sectors of the economy.