Development aid: focus on citizen security, justice and jobs says World Bank

Development aid should refocus on strengthening national institutions and improving governance in ways that promote citizen security, provide justice and create jobs, particularly in fragile states, the World Bank’s latest World Development Report (WDR) suggests.

Some 1.5 billion people live in countries affected by repeated cycles of political and criminal violence, and no low-income fragile or conflict-affected country has yet to achieve a single Millennium Development Goal.

While water and sanitation do not play a major role in the report, two of the input papers have links with the sector:

• Resource scarcity, climate change and the risk of violent conflict by Alex Evans – in which the resource scarcity element of the paper is primarily focused on resources required to meet basic needs such as food, land and water.
• Service delivery in fragile and conflict-affected states by Mark Baird – which includes a short case study on post-conflict water and sanitation programmes in East Timor

The WDR stresses that true institutional transformations require time.

It typically takes 15 to 30 years for weak or illegitimate national institutions to become resilient to violence and instability, according to new research commissioned for the report.

The report provides a set of tools that have helped countries make successful transitions and rebuild confidence between citizens and the state. These include transparency measures, budget allocations for disadvantaged groups and credible commitments to realistic timelines for longer-term reform.

A major omission in the report, according to Overseas Development Institute research fellow Jonathan Glennie, is the failure to mention the Paris agenda on aid effectiveness.

Fundamental to the legitimacy of institutions is where their money comes from. So the report is right to focus on the donor-recipient relationship, which muddies the supposed accountability links between citizen and government. It is good that this link (a particular beef of mine) is being recognised in such an important report.

But to engage in a long list of (very welcome) suggestions for how international agencies should reform without mentioning the major international initiative seeking to achieve such reform is strange. While calling for donors to work better together, the World Bank is in danger of looking like it prefers to go it alone, setting up a new group of “WDR principles”.

Related web site: World Bank – World Development Report 2011

Source: World Bank, 11 Apr 2011 ; Ivy Mungcal, Devlopment Newswire, Devex.com, 11 Apr 2011 ; Jonathan Glennie, Poverty Matters Blog, Guardian, 11 Apr 2011

World Bank launches Global Urbanization Knowledge Platform

In 2011, the World Bank’s Knowledge Council selected urbanisation as one of the Knowledge Platforms eligible for three year seed funding by the Bank. The Global Urbanization Knowledge Platform is a collaborative partnership between researchers, policymakers, the private-sector, and knowledge brokers including the World Bank Group. It aims to become the leading “go-to” hub for urban knowledge.

This means moving beyond a static repository, and beyond conferences and workshops, towards an open-source knowledge exchange

Topics are demand-driven, requested by participants, within four thematic pillars: economic, social, environmental and governance.

Four platform components are envisaged:

• an open, online forum
• rolling, dynamic knowledge exchanges in real-time; this involves voting on topics (new urban policies, research or problems) during rapid fire showcases to be further discussed and summarised for dissemination online
• ‘thought-leaders’
• a data platform

Global Urbanization Knowledge Platform structure

Partners that have already signed on to the Global Urbanization Knowledge Platform include the World Bank, McKinsey Global Institute, Cities Alliance, : Indian Institute for Human Settlements, MIT Dept of Urban Studies & Planning, Brookings Institution and eminent researchers like Edward Glaeser and Vernon Henderson.

One of the first thought-leader presentations is Glaeser’s Triumph of the City

The official launch of the platform will take place during six or more events on June 2011. The aim is to be fully operational from July 2011 onwards.

Read the Global Urbanization Knowledge Platform leaflet

Source: World Bank, Urban Development Issue Brief, Apr 2011 ; Making Cities Work, 11 Feb 2011

World Bank and US Government sign water MoU, Conrad Hilton Foundation and Coca Cola pledge US$ 56 million for WASH

To mark World Water Day, 22 March 2011, World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed an agreement making it easier for the U.S. Government and World Bank to work together to address global water challenges.

While the Bank and the U.S. have partnered before on water issues, this provides the World Bank access to experts in 17 U.S. government agencies and departments to address issues such as lack of safe drinking water and sanitation, diminishing aquifers, drought, flooding, and climate change impacts.

Read the full text of the MoU

The signing was preceded by presentations by Steve Hilton of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, who announced a US$ 50-million pledge for water projects, and Jeff Seabright, Vice President of Coca Cola, who announced a US$ $6 million pledge for water and sanitation projects.

World Bank’s Water Sector Writing Contest on Wikipedia

The World Bank Wikipedia writing contest is an effort by the World Bank to engage with Universities for its Wikipedia Pilot Project (WPP). The competition is open to students currently enrolled at participating universities worldwide. First place contestants will be offered invitations for a week-long paid visit to the World Bank Water Week from 31 January – 04 February 2011 in Washington D.C.

The WPP project started in 2006 and maintains overviews of the water sector in a particular country or city, in the categories  water supply and sanitation, water resources management, integrated urban water resources management, and irrigation.  So far World Bank staff largely compiled these pages on Wikipedia, but now it is asking the broader academic community to participate in their preparation and maintenance.

The World Bank Wikipedia writing contest includes three categories in which to compete (contestants may only choose one):

1. writing an original Wikipedia note on a water topic
2. updating current Wikipedia notes on water
3. or preparing a comparative analysis based on existing Wikipedia water notes.

Submission deadline: 31 December 2010.

The three winners, one in each category, will be announced on 14 January 2011.

For more information and to register, please send your inquiry to: lacwikipedia@worldbank.org.

Read the full announcement

Related web sites:

• World Bank – Wikipedia Project
• Wikipedia – Water Supply and Sanitation by Country

World Bank: policy review calls for more integrated approach to water management

Following a mid-cycle review of its 2003 water strategy [1], the World Bank says it is moving from stand-alone water supply projects to those that link water use to resource management. It also promises to employ “the full extent of its instruments” to the help address the backlog in reaching the sanitation Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The strategy review found significant improvement both in funding levels and project performance, with satisfactory ratings consistently higher than the Bank-wide average of 75 per cent. The Bank’s water commitments will continue to rise to an estimated US$ 21-25 billion for the coming three years.

Some other important new strategic directions covered in the review include:

• scaling-up of support for hydropower
• more focus on water for climate change adaptation and mitigation
• increased assistance to agricultural water management; and
• exploring opportunities for private financing for and corporatisation of water utilities

The scaling-up of its water activities has led to a recruitment drive, so that now the Bank employs 158 sector specialists. Nevertheless, there are several areas like (surprisingly) economics and finance, and wastewater reuse where expertise is missing. To compensate for this the Bank set up the Water Anchor which can call on experts as short-term consultants, through various technical support facilities. One of these is SWAT, the Sanitation, Hygiene and Wastewater Support Service. Since its inception in 2005, SWAT has committed about US$ 1 million for operational support in 28 countries and 33 projects. The service has influenced a total sanitation and wastewater investment valued over US$ 1.1 billion.

[1] Vandycke, N. (2010). Sustaining water for all in a changing climate : World Bank Group implementation progress report of the Water Resources Sector Strategy. Washington, DC, USA, World Bank. xiii, 105 p. Download full report

Related web sites: World Bank – Water | SWAT

Source: World Bank, 31 Aug 2010

Climate change: high adaptation costs for water sector, World Bank study says

“Water supply and flood management, ranks as one of the top three climate adaptation costs in both the wetter and drier scenario, with Sub-Saharan Africa footing by far the highest costs” says a new World Bank report.

The draft global report of the Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change Study (EACC) calculates the cost between 2010 and 2050 of adapting to an approximately 2°C warmer world by 2050. A second report due in March 2010 will consist of seven country case studies (Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, Samoa, and Viet Nam).

The EACC study estimates that over the next 40 years, global net annual adapation costs for municipal and industrial water supply will be between US$ 10.0 billion (wetter scenario) and US$ 11.1 billion (dry scenario). In both scenarios, nearly two-thirds of these costs (US$ 5.9 billion and US$ 7.3 billion, respectively) are for Sub-Saharan Africa [tab. 13, p. 54].

“Costs of adaptation are defined as the cost of providing enough raw water to restore future industrial and municipal water demand to the levels that would have existed without climate change. Such demand is assumed to be met by increasing the capacity of surface reservoir storage, except when that would raise withdrawals to more than 80 percent of river runoff and when the cost of supplying water from reservoir yield is more than $0.30 a cubic meter. In these cases, supply is assumed to be met through alternative measures, such as recycling, rainwater harvesting, and desalination, at a cost of $0.30 a cubic meter” [p. 53].

The adaptation cost for water supply and flood management in the EACC study is higher than previously calculated by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in 2007. The World Bank says this is because it has tried to include a number of costs that UNFCC overlooked, such as the costs of maintaining water quality standards and operating costs [p. 82-83].

“As do most sectoral studies of global adaptation costs, [EACC] study focuses on hard adaptation measures, which are easier to cost than behavioral measures. There is no implication that these are the best measures for adaptation. Ideally, adaptation options to ensure water supply during average and drought conditions should integrate strategies on both demand and supply sides. While demand-side adaptations are not explicitly costed in this study (demand projections already account for some increase in efficiencies over time, so this could lead to double counting), there is wide scope for economizing on water consumption” [p. 55].

Global adapation costs for water supply and sanitation infrastructure were estimated to be US$ 700 million per year [tab. 8, p. 44].

Average annual adaptation costs in the health sector for diarrhoea and malaria prevention and treatment lie in a narrow range of US$ 1.3–1.6 billion a year over the 40-year period 2010–50, according to the EACC study. These estimates for malaria and diarrhea are lower than the prior estimates of US$ 4–12 billion, because they take into account the effects of development and the resulting decline in under-five mortality [p. 66-68].

Though adaptation is costly, costs can be reduced, says the World Bank. “The clearest opportunities to reduce the costs of adaptation are in the water supply and flood protection sector. [...] A large share of the costs of adaptation in the water supply and flood protection sector could be avoided by adopting better management [and water tariff] policies” [p. 94-95].

One important lesson that the report mentions is that “development is the most powerful form of adaptation”. It suggests too that the costs of adaptation may also be dramatically reduced by a combination of technical change and private initiative.

World Bank Water Week 2009 presentations online

Water Week took place at the World Bank headquarters in Washington DC from February 17-20, 2009. The event was organized by the Water Anchor in partnership with the Water Sector Board. Titled “Tackling Global Water Challenges”, the discussions focused on the urgent challenges currently faced by the water community including inter alia: adapting to climate change, responding to the food crisis, keeping the momentum for the MDGs, and dealing with the potential impact of the global economic crisis.

All presentations are now online here [for previous years see the World Bank Water Weeks presentation guide 2001-2007].

Below are links to some of the WASH-related presentations:

Africa

• Benin Rural Water Public Expenditures Review
• Improving Performance, The Role Of Governance: Burkina Faso
• Water Operators in Rural Areas in Cameroon: An Alternative that Works
• At Scale Hygiene and Sanitation Promotion in Ethiopia
• Ghana – Role Of Private Operator In Small Towns Water Supply
• Assessing Options for Reducing Health Risks in Irrigated Urban Farming:New Findings from Ghana
• Kenya Microfinance To Small Piped Water Supplies
• PPP In the Rural Water Supply Sector: The Senegalese Experience
• Public Expenditure Review in the Water Sector: The Case of Tanzania
• Private Sector Participation In Provision of Water Supply Services in Small Towns in Uganda
• Fostering Improved Performance Through Internal Contractualisation: Uganda
• Uganda Small Towns: Contractual Arrangements & Funds Flow
• Scaling Up Sanitation And Hygiene In Uganda
• WSS Services In Small Towns In Zambia

Asia

• Multipurpose Use of Water Resources – Bangladesh
• India – Effectiveness of Rural Water Schemes
• Helping Implementers Scale Up: Indonesia, India, and Tanzania
• Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Fund Development Board – Nepal
• 24 /7 Managed by Rural Communities – Pakistan
• Effects Of Climate Change On Planning And Managing Water Services In The Potohar Region Of Pakistan
• Mobilizing Finance for Small Water Utilities: The Case of the Philippines
• Philippines Small Towns Water Utilities Performance
• Community Water Supply & Sanitation Project: Sri Lanka
• Poor-Inclusive Sanitation Planning and Development in Southeast Asia

Latin America

• Reuse Of Wastewater In Urban Agriculture In Metropolitan Lima, Perú

General – Hygiene and Sanitation

• Scaling Up Hygiene & Sanitation Effectively And Sustainably
• Community-Led Total Behavior Change in Hygiene and Sanitation
• Scaling Up Handwashing with Soap: Experiences and Lessons
• The Challenge Of Financing Sanitation At Household Level
• Condominial Water Supply And Sewerage Systems

General – Urban WASH

• A Practical Guide for Improving Water Supply and Sanitation Services to the Urban Poor
• Water And Climate Change: Technical Aspects Of Water Utilities
• The Small Towns Challenge and the Issue of Scale
• Economic Regulation and the Urban Poor
• Serving The Urban Poor: Lessons From Lusaka’s Peri-Urban Department
• Small Scale Providers: Alternative Or Complementary Solution?

Miscellaneous

• Using Multimedia Tools to Enhance Impact
• Creating and Sharing Water Knowledge Globally on Wikipedia
• Partnerships: Rethinking Poverty Alleviation In Times Of Crisis