Actors and instruments
While drinking water utilities in the Netherlands already have experience in the re-use of (solid) waste streams (launch Reststoffen Unie 1995, since 2016 called Aquaminerals), it takes years to apply circular economy thinking in WASH and Wastewater recycling. Circular economy thinking has turned the sanitation economy today into a threefold economy of sanitary services, circular economy waste processes (with value creation in new resources) and data economy (on access, service level, health and other SDG impact areas. Waste water recycling and rainwater harvesting are still largely absent, only explored in water-scarcity prone areas. A further push in that working field is coming from climate change adaptation.
A large variety of impact investors, innovation funds (pushed by the climate change agenda) and IT sector players start dominating the WASH investments. Examples are Transform (Unilever) DanoneCommunities, Development WorldMarkets (DWM), Responsibility, GIF, GEF, Water Finance Facility, project 1800, DFCD, iW+, impact Family Offices, MFI-investments, pension funds and others .
Also a new cohort of social entrepreneurs emerge in a wide range of technology driven services.
Various consortia were formed to address the cross-sectoral, integral and integration agenda of SDGs, its crosscutting issues around water/accountability and risk mitigation. Important was the Agenda4Change initiative (in May 2015, large NGO’s like Wateraid, IRC, WaterforPeople, PSI ao).
Developments and lessons learned
The influence of ICT and AI (Artificial Intelligence) has geared the data economy, the monitoring and communication techniques, the dashboard-tools for management and the exchange globally in knowledge-expertise and innovation. Not only for large scale infrastructure based water and wastewater operations by utilities (scada systems, sensoring and monitoring, pre-paid) but also in decentralized WASH services with borehole-monitoring and sensoring, water kiosk-operations on pre-paid base (using tags/creditcard/mobile phone) and the complete data economy around WASH-health-insurances.
Technical innovation in production of water from different sources into safe water as well as in treatment of waste streams has geared a circular economy approach on waste water, its nutrients, the waste streams from sanitation interventions (sludge, septic tanks, latrines) and organic waste.
Pumping-treatment-sensoring-monitoring- assembling and manufacturing is benefiting innovation in large and small scale solutions, more and more based on local resources, skills and capacity.
Developments in membrane technology, solar energy, data economy and AI have changed the working field of WASH services drastically in the last 10-15 years.
Working and investing in the public domain of water and sanitation with an inclusive business model is even today perceived as a high risk-low revenue-volatile market sector.
A safe water market of over 2 billion consumers (waiting for safe water services with a high willingness to pay) is identified but yet waiting for (financial)risk mitigating concepts. The emerging circular economy market in waste streams including human waste, faecal sludge and wastewater, its nutrients and its energy potential, its protein-production potential and its contribution to recovery of scarce metals is well documented but yet splintered and locally based applied.
Already from 2011 a new thinking emerged in addressing social outcomes, monetizing its impact in adding value to negative externalities (the so-called in-action costs) as the positive externalities (jobs, health, climate adaptation, circular economy). New concepts are emerging like carbon credits for safe water projects, green and blue bond-concepts are developed for the finance sector.
More and more nexus based funding programs emerge (Food4Water, climate funds, innovation funds). For operators, lease concepts for water technology, cashless payment, pre-paid metering and private investments in handpump-concessional programs are examples of new concepts in funding investments with (de-risking first loss capital (DRFLC) from donors and grantors. Data economy drives the water agenda to monitor the output-outcome-impact claims by donors, financiers as well as end users/beneficiaries.
Willingness to pay for water and sanitation services largely depends the level of service that is provided. Concessional delegation of services to operators with technology suppliers and IT-agencies strongly accelerated pre-paid approach while securing tariff components for maintenance and repair, on escrow kind of accounts ‘in the cloud’ . Mobile phone and internet based cashless payments by tokens, credit cards and up loadable tags enhance the pre-paid metering options that increase both trustworthiness, service level and maintenance level of the facilities.
Technology suppliers involve their own finance options using Micro and mezzo finance options while issuing bonds for infrastructure investments. Donors start using their grants to de-risk the investors.
Note: Challenges, tenders, calls for proposals, innovation contests, grant-instruments have triggered thousands of ideas, concepts, plans and projects. Orchestration and synchronization, alignment of finance policies and catalyst-scale structures however is lacking and leaving the finance setting in a fragmented position while a global finance gap is observed given the need for investments (for SDG 6 alone 114 billion/year) versus the actual funding level (less than 20 billion /year).
Accountability and private sector involvement
Willingness to pay for water & sanitation services largely depends the level of service that is performed. Concessional delegation of services to operators with technology suppliers and IT-agencies strongly accelerated pre-paid approach while securing tariff components for maintenance and repair, on escrow kind of accounts ‘in the cloud’ . Mobile phone and internet based cashless payments by tokens, credit cards and up loadable tags enhance the pre-paid metering options that increase both trustworthiness, service level and maintenance level of the facilities.
Technology suppliers involve their own finance options using Micro and mezzo finance options while issuing bonds for infrastructure investments. Donors start using their grants to de-risk the investors.
Challenges, tenders, Calls for proposals, innovation contests, grant-instruments have triggered thousands of ideas, concepts, plans and projects. Orchestration and synchronization, alignment of finance policies and catalyst-scale structures however is yet leaving the finance setting in a fragmented position while a global finance gap is observed given the need for investments (for SDG6 alone 114 billion/year) versus the actual funding level (less than 20 billion /year).
After the failure of the MDG’s approach , various consortia were formed to address the integral agenda of SDG crosscutting issues around water/accountability and risk mitigation. Important was the Agenda4Change initiative (In May 2015, large NGO’s like wateraid, IRC, waterforpeople, PSI ao).
As a reaction to international WASH discourse and developments, DGIS joined forces with Dutch water supply companies and water boards. You can read more about here. The Water operator partnerships from Dutch utilities joined forces under the new umbrella: waterworx (see: https://gwopa.org/what-we-do/projects/waterworx/)