By Dossi Sêkonnou Gloria AGUEH, Founder and Africa Director, Women Leaders Network for Development (RFLD)
Introduction
In many of the communities where RFLD works, the first public decision of the day is taken by a woman with a jerrycan. She decides which source to walk to, how long she can wait in the queue and whether the water is safe enough for her children. That decision shapes her health, her income and her time for school, work or public life. It is also a decision that rarely reaches the rooms where water budgets are set.
Globally, 2.1 billion people still lacked safely managed drinking water in 2024 and 3.4 billion lacked safely managed sanitation (WHO and UNICEF, 2025). Sub-Saharan Africa carries a large share of this deficit. Where water is not available on the premises, women and girls are responsible for collecting it in seven out of ten households (WHO and UNICEF, 2023). The financing gap is therefore a gender gap as well as an infrastructure gap.
This article examines five areas where financing choices will decide whether Africa closes that gap: resilient infrastructure, wastewater reuse, ecosystem protection, decentralised water and sanitation systems, and water diplomacy and governance. In each area, I argue that money moves further when women and local organisations take part in deciding how it is spent.
1. The scale of the financing challenge
The World Bank estimated that achieving universal access to safely managed water and sanitation (SDG targets 6.1 and 6.2) would require around US$114 billion a year in capital investment worldwide, about three times historical levels (Hutton and Varughese, 2016). Operation and maintenance costs come on top of this. African governments have recognised the problem. Through the Continental Africa Water Investment Programme, the African Union aims to mobilise at least US$30 billion a year by 2030 for water and sanitation investment (AIP, 2023).
Three features of water finance make the challenge harder. Water assets last decades, while most budgets and donor projects run for three to five years. Revenue from tariffs is often too low to cover costs, which weakens the creditworthiness of utilities and limits their access to commercial finance. And public spending tends to favour visible new construction over the maintenance that keeps existing systems working. A financing strategy for Africa has to address all three: longer horizons, stronger utilities and budgets that protect maintenance.
2. Resilient infrastructure that can respond to changing conditions
Climate change is altering the conditions that water infrastructure was designed for. Droughts are longer, floods are more intense and rising temperatures increase demand. Infrastructure built on historical rainfall patterns can fail at the moment it is needed most. Research by the World Bank found that infrastructure disruptions cost households and firms in low- and middle-income countries at least US$390 billion a year, and that investing in more resilient infrastructure yields a net benefit of about US$4 for every US$1 invested (Hallegatte, Rentschler and Rozenberg, 2019).
Resilience is a design question and a financing question. It requires climate risk screening at the project preparation stage, budgets that allow for redundancy such as backup sources and storage, and maintenance funds that are ring-fenced. Climate finance can play a larger role here. Adaptation finance remains a small share of total climate finance, and an even smaller share reaches local actors. Directing more of it to water resilience, and allowing local governments and community organisations to access it directly, would bring resources closer to the places where floods and droughts are felt first.
Women have practical knowledge of how water systems fail. They know which borehole dries up first in the dry season and which latrine floods in the rains. Including women in vulnerability assessments and in the design of resilient systems is a low-cost way to make investments more accurate.
3. Wastewater reuse and integrated management of water resources
Wastewater is often treated as a problem to dispose of. It can also be a resource. Globally, over 80 per cent of wastewater is released into the environment without adequate treatment (WWAP, 2017). Treated wastewater can be reused for irrigation, industry and groundwater recharge. Sludge can be converted into fertiliser or energy. The 2017 United Nations World Water Development Report described wastewater as an untapped resource and argued that its recovery can help finance sanitation services (WWAP, 2017).
For African cities, reuse offers a way to reduce pressure on freshwater sources while generating revenue. Peri-urban farmers already use wastewater, often untreated and at a risk to their health. Investing in safe treatment and reuse can protect these farmers, many of whom are women, while improving food supply to urban markets. Financing models that combine public investment in treatment with revenue from the sale of treated water, compost or biogas can make sanitation services more sustainable.
Reuse must sit within integrated water resources management. The Dublin Principles of 1992 recognised water as a finite resource with economic value, called for participatory management, and stated that women play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water (ICWE, 1992). More than three decades later, the third principle is still the least applied. Water allocation decisions, including decisions on reuse, should involve the women who use water for households, gardens and small enterprises.
4. Ecosystem protection and water security
Healthy ecosystems store, filter and regulate water. Forests and wetlands reduce flood peaks, recharge aquifers and improve water quality. When these ecosystems are degraded, the costs fall on water utilities, which must spend more on treatment, and on communities, which face more frequent floods and dry wells. The 2018 United Nations World Water Development Report called for greater use of nature-based solutions alongside built infrastructure (WWAP, 2018).
Financing ecosystem protection is a practical investment in water security. Mechanisms such as water funds and payments for ecosystem services allow downstream users, including cities and utilities, to invest in the protection of upstream catchments. These mechanisms work best when they recognise the rights of the communities who live in and manage those landscapes. In many rural areas of Africa, women manage land, collect forest products and maintain local water points, but they often lack secure land rights. Protecting ecosystems without securing women’s rights risks shifting the burden of conservation onto those with the least power.
The Maputo Protocol gives a legal basis for this link. It commits States to provide women with access to clean drinking water (Article 15) and recognises the right of women to live in a healthy and sustainable environment (Article 18) (African Union, 2003). Financing for ecosystem protection should be designed with these obligations in mind.
5. Decentralised water and sanitation systems
Centralised piped networks and sewers remain important, but they cannot reach every rural village or fast-growing informal settlement in the coming decade. Decentralised systems, such as small piped schemes, solar-powered boreholes, rainwater harvesting and non-sewered sanitation with faecal sludge management, can deliver safe services at a lower cost per person in these settings. International standards now exist for non-sewered sanitation systems (ISO, 2018), which helps regulators and investors assess quality.
The weakness of decentralised systems is rarely the technology. It is the management model and the money for repairs. Many rural water points stop working within a few years of construction because no one is responsible for maintenance and no budget exists for it. Professional service providers, clear contracts with local governments and small, predictable public subsidies can change this. Results-based financing, where providers are paid for functioning services rather than for construction, is one tool that has shown promise.
Women’s organisations are natural partners for decentralised services. Women’s water committees already collect fees, report breakdowns and mobilise households in many communities. Too often they do this work without training, legal recognition or a share of the revenue. Financing decentralised systems should include support for these committees to become recognised service managers, with access to credit and technical skills.
6. Water diplomacy and governance
Africa has more than sixty transboundary river basins. How countries share these waters affects peace, food production and energy supply. Water diplomacy is therefore part of the financing picture. Joint basin institutions can plan investments at the right scale, reduce the risk of conflict and give financiers confidence that projects will be respected across borders.
West Africa offers a strong example. In 1972, Mali, Mauritania and Senegal created the Organisation for the Development of the Senegal River (OMVS), later joined by Guinea. Member States declared the river an international watercourse and agreed to own and manage major works, such as the Diama and Manantali dams, as common property, sharing their costs and benefits (OMVS, 2002). This arrangement has supported joint investment for five decades.
Global frameworks are also opening to Africa. The United Nations Water Convention, originally a regional instrument, became open to all UN Member States in 2016. Chad and Senegal became the first African parties in 2018, and others have followed (UNECE, 2024). Accession can help countries strengthen cooperation and attract support for basin-level investment.
Governance within countries matters as much as cooperation between them. Transparent tariff setting, independent regulation, public reporting on utility performance and budget tracking by civil society all increase the confidence of citizens and financiers. Women remain underrepresented in water ministries, utilities and basin organisations. Increasing their participation is a governance reform with direct benefits for service quality and accountability.
7. Recommendations
Based on this analysis and on RFLD’s experience with women’s organisations across Africa, I propose the following actions for governments, development partners and financiers:
- Protect maintenance budgets. Ring-fence funds for operation and maintenance in national and local budgets, and link donor support to functioning services over time.
- Make climate finance reach water. Increase the share of adaptation finance for water resilience and open direct access windows for local governments and community organisations.
- Invest in reuse. Support wastewater treatment and reuse projects that generate revenue and protect peri-urban farmers, with health safeguards.
- Finance nature. Expand water funds and payment schemes for catchment protection, with secure land rights for the women who manage these landscapes.
- Back decentralised services. Use results-based financing for rural and peri-urban services, and recognise women’s water committees as service managers with access to credit and training.
- Strengthen water diplomacy. Support basin organisations, encourage accession to the UN Water Convention and include women in transboundary negotiations.
- Track the money. Publish water and sanitation budgets and spending by region, and fund civil society, including women’s organisations, to monitor them.
Conclusion
Financing water and sanitation in Africa is a question of how much money is available and of who decides how it is used. The evidence shows that resilient infrastructure, wastewater reuse, ecosystem protection, decentralised systems and good water governance can all deliver high returns. Those returns are larger and more lasting when the people who depend on water every day help shape the investments.
At RFLD, we work with women leaders who already manage water points, monitor local budgets and speak for their communities. They are ready to do more. Financing that recognises their role will close the access gap faster. It will also give millions of African women and girls back the hours they now spend carrying water, hours they can use for school, work and leadership.
References
- African Union (2003) Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol). Maputo: African Union.
- AIP (2023) Continental Africa Water Investment Programme. Available at: https://aipwater.org (Accessed: 9 October 2026).
- Hallegatte, S., Rentschler, J. and Rozenberg, J. (2019) Lifelines: The Resilient Infrastructure Opportunity. Washington, DC: World Bank.
- Hutton, G. and Varughese, M. (2016) The Costs of Meeting the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal Targets on Drinking Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene. Water and Sanitation Program Technical Paper. Washington, DC: World Bank.
- ICWE (1992) The Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development. International Conference on Water and the Environment, Dublin, 26 to 31 January.
- ISO (2018) ISO 30500:2018 Non-sewered sanitation systems: Prefabricated integrated treatment units, general safety and performance requirements for design and testing. Geneva: International Organization for Standardization.
- OMVS (2002) Charte des Eaux du Fleuve Sénégal. Dakar: Organisation pour la Mise en Valeur du fleuve Sénégal.
- UNECE (2024) Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention): Status of ratification. Geneva: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.
- WHO and UNICEF (2023) Progress on Household Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene 2000 to 2022: Special Focus on Gender. New York: UNICEF and WHO.
- WHO and UNICEF (2025) Progress on Household Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene 2000 to 2024: Special Focus on Inequalities. New York: UNICEF and WHO.
- WWAP (United Nations World Water Assessment Programme) (2017) The United Nations World Water Development Report 2017: Wastewater, The Untapped Resource. Paris: UNESCO.
- WWAP (2018) The United Nations World Water Development Report 2018: Nature-Based Solutions for Water. Paris: UNESCO.
