Today, there are still 900 million people drinking unsafe water and 2.5 billion people living without good sanitation, suffering the consequences of this shocking situation.

This week in Stockholm at World Water Week, hundreds of water, sanitation and hygiene professionals are placing the spotlight on these issues, hoping to find answers that reduce the millions of annual deaths and instances of illness and billions of dollars in economic losses caused from poor water and sanitation.

One area of intervention is providing water and sanitation services for poor people living in urban areas, who comprise more than 70 percent of the urban population in developing countries.  This is a growing concern because of rapid urbanization in many of these countries. The Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) believes that some of the answers  derived from case studies of developing countries around the world will contribute to identifying solutions at Stockholm and beyond.

The studies from Bangladesh, Brazil, Honduras, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia demonstrate that the issues go well beyond basic investments in infrastructure to underlying systems of affordable, hygienic and sustainable service delivery.  

For example, we learned that giving poor people the opportunity to participate in the planning and design phase can be the determining factor in whether a project succeeds in bringing sustainable water access.

We also learned that vested interests among water vendors, landlords, public officials, and utility staff may sometimes prevent better service delivery for poor people, but that confrontations are avoided by giving informal service providers and others new roles or incentives that bring them into the formal system.  

We have also seen examples of how recognizing, legitimizing and providing finance to small private service providers can promote the expansion of acceptable services to neighborhoods not served by any utility company. Public awareness campaigns on support water and sanitation access for the poor have also proven successful.

We know that land ownership and tenure issues often create barriers to the provision of services to poor people. One approach was to allow alternative documentation since many poor people do not have traditional land titles.

World Water Week participants, government officials, sector practitioners, private sector and aid organizations can seek out and expand on water and sanitation lessons and programs that are proven to work.  If we harmonize our efforts through initiatives such as the Global Framework for Action, give finance ministries the evidence needed to allocate necessary resources, and foster favorable legal and regulatory frameworks that encourage accountability and incentivize new players, we can bridge the gaps in the road to successful achievement of the MDGs on water and sanitation.

The challenge ahead is great, but there are signs of hope. According to UNICEF and the WHO, billions of people have gained access to improved drinking water and access to improved sanitation since 1990.  Working together we can continue to make progress, through 2015 and beyond, when the lack of these basic services becomes a thing of the past.


The writer is  manager of the Water and Sanitation Program, a multi-donor partnership administered by the World Bank.

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