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This publication is a Working Draft.
It is a non-technical introduction to finance for water infrastructure and services. It is relevant to countries at various levels of development and complements earlier reports of the EUWI Finance Working Group and programmes of the Global Water Partnership and World Water Council. The policy context is the target of the Millennium Development Goals: “by 2015, to reduce by half the world’s population without access to safe water and sanitation.” The latest Human Development Report (2006) reports that the world as a whole is on track to meet the MDG water goal (halving the proportion of people without access to water) thanks to strong progress in India, China and other populous countries. But the world as a whole is off-track on sanitation. This scenario has strong regional variations. On current trends sub-Saharan Africa is likely to miss the water target by a full generation and the sanitation goal by two generations. South Asia is reported to be on track to attain its water goals (thanks largely to progress in India) but is lagging on sanitation. East Asia and the Pacific are on track for sanitation, but slipping behind on water.
