FINANCING WATER, SANITATION & HYGIENE “AN ENDLESS TALE OF IMPOVERISHED COUNTRIES”

Abstract

This article explores aspects of Public Financial Management (PFM) mechanisms towards the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) on Clean Water and Sanitation and related goals. Developing countries like Zambia have been afflicted with poor financing of the water sector and exacerbated by financial mismanagement. As such, sustaining water, sanitation and hygiene, water resource management, water quality and risk factors does not only call for political leadership and expediency, but also for significant investment in water systems and infrastructure, and tied to stringent PFM mechanisms. Zambia, in particular, still has challenges in terms of high poverty levels; low GDP growth rate; power crisis; high fiscal deficits and financial mismanagement; and a very high debt burden. Many citizens in Urban and Peri - Urban settings still rely on bore holes and soak-ways for their drinking water and sanitation respectively, and worse for those in the rural areas. This has not only exposed the citizenry to contaminated water but also led to intrusion of the ecological systems in these areas. Arguably too is the fact that the WSS sector transformation process in Zambia from Council - managed to Commercial Utilities have not yielded much in terms of the desired impact, thereby exacerbating the already precarious situation of donor - driven financing. On this basis, Zambia is likely to face an uphill battle in terms of attaining the SDG on Clean Water and Sanitation within the projected timeframe to 2030. The paper provides some solutions to reducing impoverishment and concludes that as long as developing countries like Zambia, fail to adequately harness strong PFM mechanisms, the dream for sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene will never be attained. As such, financing of the sector will forever remain an endless tale of impoverished countries.