Can the world afford water security for all?

One in four people worldwide still lacks access to safe drinking water, according to a recent UNICEF report. Unfortunately, despite the many positive changes that have taken place in this area over the past two decades, water security is an underfunded and improperly implemented goal. Bank representatives point out how much still needs to change.

Global water security is on the rise, but…

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund, (UNICEF) have prepared a joint report assessing progress in the rollout of WASH (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene) services worldwide. In plain English, it’s about access to potable water, sanitation and hygiene in households over the period 2000-2024.

The document shows that in the past decade alone, 961 million people have gained access to safely managed water resources, increasing global coverage from 68 to 74 percent. Despite these positive changes, water security remains an illusion for the world’s 2.1 billion people. As many as 106 million of the planet’s citizens drink untreated water from surface reservoirs. The situation is most serious in the Sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania regions.

Sewer service coverage also leaves much to be desired. True, it has increased in the past decade from 48 to 58 percent globally (from 36 to 49 percent in rural areas), but in 2024. 3.4 billion people still lacked access to safe sanitation, and 354 million practiced defecation in the open.

Colossal social inequalities in hygiene

The WHO/UNICEF report also focuses on basic hygiene services. Access to them has increased from 66 to 80 percent globally over the past quarter century. The most difficult conditions are in East and Central Africa, as well as Bolivia and Papua New Guinea, where more than half of the population lacks conditions for basic hygiene.

Girls and women living in poor countries and rural areas are much more likely to be forced to use reusable menstrual products. They typically suffer from their scarcity and lack free access to water. Inequalities in the prevalence of WASH services are a direct derivative of the wealth of societies, but also depend on place of residence, ethnic group, gender, and level of physical and intellectual fitness.

The report’s authors acknowledge that the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals related to water security (SDGs 1.4, 6.1 and 6.2) is far from becoming a reality by the original 2030 deadline.

Access to water and climate change

UNICEF’s 2022-2025 Strategic Plan aims to ensure that every child in the world has access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene, as well as the opportunity to live in a safe climate and environment. However lofty this goal is, a report published in August this year(Global Annual Results Report 2024: Goal Area 4) shows significant progress in achieving it.

Last year, through UNICEF’s direct involvement, 8,700 schools and 3.8 health centers gained access to basic WASH services. The organization’s efforts have helped ensure water security for 33.3 million people, particularly in areas affected by humanitarian disasters. In doing so, great emphasis is placed on drinking water supply systems and sanitation infrastructure that will be resilient to climate change.

The Today and Tomorrow Initative (TTI) program guarantees cyclone insurance for 13.5 million people in Africa, Central America and Asia in the Pacific. As of April 2025, the fund had already paid out $11.4 million in compensation, with an additional $6.9 million supporting investments for risk reduction and climate adaptation.

No water without money

Spreading WASH services around the world is an extremely costly task, requiring a commitment of resources at the global level. This very aspect is the focus of the Multilateral Development Banks’ (MDBs) JointWater Security Financing Report 2024. The document was created through the cooperation of 10 financial institutions, including the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the World Bank Group.

The report shows that in 2024 alone, the MDBs approved $19.6 billion in funding for water-related activities, of which $14.4 billion went to low- and middle-income countries. However, this is just a drop in the ocean of needs.

To make matters worse, a World Bank study shows that only 72 percent of the funds allocated to the water sector between 2009 and 2020 were used properly. This is a surprisingly low level compared to other sectors, such as human resource development (99 percent) or transportation (91 percent). The low absorptive capacity of water sector institutions, according to experts, is expected to be a direct reflection of indicators such as governance effectiveness, regulatory quality, state legitimacy and the functioning of political institutions.

Many countries lack coherent policies aimed at eliminating inequalities in the water sector and ensuring access for all while keeping the system sustainable and resilient, MDB officials say.

What needs to change?

The authors of the report stress that already approx. 25 percent of global GDP is threatened by water scarcity. Meanwhile, cooperation to optimize the management of water resources is still insufficient, and this fragmentation severely limits global water security. They calculated that 276 catchment areas, which store more than 60 percent of the world’s freshwater resources, are under the shared responsibility of 148 countries – and there is a lack of agreement among many of them.

The main problem, however, is money. To meet the SDG 6.1 and 6.2 targets by 2030, there is still a shortfall of approx. 138 billion dollars. To cover this gap, countries need to increase annual spending on the water sector by 270-300 percent. The greatest investment needs are in sub-Saharan Africa – here spending on water security should increase more than 10-fold. An even larger funding gap for WASH services has been found in the poorest and conflict-affected countries, where investments should increase 29-42 times.

According to the report’s authors, achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in these regions will not be possible without greater involvement of private capital. MDB’s key task in this regard is to support policy and institutional reforms for financial sustainability, as well as technical assistance and the development of innovative financing instruments.

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In the article, I used:

Progress on household drinking water, sanitation and hygiene 2000-2024: special focus on inequalities. Geneva: World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 2025. License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO

Water Security Financing Report 2024. : World Bank, ADB, AfDB, AIIB, CEB, EBRD, EIB, IDB, IsDB, and NDB 2025. Water Security Financing Report 2024. Washington, DC: World Bank. License: Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO).

Global Annual Results Report 2024, UNICEF, 2025