1 July 2017: The World Bank and international donors have launched a $200-million joint Global Water Security & Sanitation Partnership to generate knowledge, promote innovation, and build country capacity for meeting the water-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The partnership builds on a history of collaboration under the World Bank’s various programs and partnerships on access to water and sanitation, and will focus on five themes: sustainability, inclusion, institutions, financing and resilience.

The Global Water Security & Sanitation Partnership will focus on analytical work, technical assistance and financing in client countries and has budgeted for activities up to the year 2022. The work will extend beyond providing infrastructure for water and sanitation to ensuring the long-term availability of water resources and ensuring that everyone has access. Among other goals, the partnership will bring private-sector financing to the water sector, while ensuring that services remain affordable for the poor. The partnership also aims to produce “resilient solutions” that will consider disaster risk and the impacts of climate change.

The partnership will enable the World Bank to make “more of a difference on the ground” and deliver water security to millions of people.

Launching the programme, World Bank partners stressed the fundamental importance of ensuring global water security and the need for joint action at the global scale. Maarten Gischler, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated that the partnership will enable the World Bank to make “more of a difference on the ground” and deliver water security to millions of people.

A World Bank press release estimates the cost of universal access to safely-managed water and sanitation services at US$114 billion a year up to 2030. [World Bank Press Release] [World Bank Publicity Video]