Financing options for the 2030 water agenda

The water sector is not well equipped to face the new financing challenges that it faces to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6), which covers all aspects of water, water resource management, and irrigation and their sustainability.

A new sector financing paradigm is required based on four broad themes. The sector has to realign itself around actions that (a) improve sector governance and efficiency (i.e., improving creditworthiness), (b) crowd in or blend private finance (i.e., leveraging capital ), (c)  allocate sector resources more effectively  to deliver the maximum benefit for every dollar invested (i.e., targeting capital), and (d) improve sector capital planning to reduce unit capital costs (i.e., minimising capital requirements).

This document summarises the characteristics of current sources of financing in the sector, identifies the key challenges and opportunities to mobilising new sources of sector finance, and lays out a series of recommendations to address the financing challenges that result from the adoption of the water SDG.