Financing the Millennium Development Goals for water and sanitation: What will it take?

The key financing challenge in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is to arrive at consensus-based, viable and sustainable country-level financing strategies that are integrated into the overall national planning and expenditure process. This requires an assessment of various policy scenarios taking into account economic capacity (as defined by GDP) as well as (plausible) level of public expenditures and affordability at a household level. This paper is prepared to guide the discussions on the characteristics of financing requirements, affordability and feasibility of the MDGs on water and sanitation in Africa. It argues that for African countries to meet the targets, they will need to implement cost recovery policies (leverage more resources into the sector) and use public resources better so as to increase sector performance and help the poor gain access to water and sanitation.