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TOWARDS THE LOCALIZATION OF THE SDGs
Overall, progress in achieving SDG 6 is difficult to assess accurately due to limited data, particularly at the sub-national level. The sharp increase in demand for water and sanitation linked to urban growth, compounded by the effects of climate change leading to urban warming, puts great pressure on LRGs. The 2018 UN Secretary General Report on progress towards the SDGs mentions that 844 million people lack even basic access to water services level of access to water services and 2.3 billion people still lack access to basic sanitation.103 Without additional effort and partnerships, universal access to basic sanitation will not be achieved by 2030.104 Safe and clean water and sanitation is a human right, essential to the attainment of decent living conditions and all other human rights.105 At a global level, rural areas lag the furthest behind, particularly in Central Asia, Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Coverage in cities, including in Least Developed Countries (LDCs), is higher due to shared sanitation facilities such as pit latrines. Regions such as Latin America have made progress in the last two decades through slum and neighbourhood upgrading programmes. Still, most of the deficits are still concentrated in informal settlements, and urban sprawl (formal and informal) remains a key challenge to protecting water-related ecosystems. In Asia and Sub-Saharan African there has been a decline in access to such services in urban areas, leaving the population exposed to waterborne diseases and vulnerable to hazards.106 Given that almost 90% of urban population growth is happening in these regions, this challenge needs to be addressed urgently. Even where countries are on track to achieve the SDG 6 targets, there are disparities between and within regions and cities. The monitoring system does not include data on the extent of water and sanitation provision by city or district. Despite the limited data available globally, there is evidence of growing inadequacies in urban areas, especially in informal settlements. There is an urgent need to achieve SDG 6 in an increasingly urbanized world, as a prerequisite to achieving SDG 11 and the ‘Right to the City’ as outlined in the New Urban Agenda. It has a strong and immediate impact on health (particularly children’s health), access to education and
sustainable food policies. There is also a need to achieve a rights-based approach to sustainable urban development, with inclusive solutions building on efforts to achieve gender equality and reduce socioeconomic and spatial inequalities.
The challenge of managing water and sanitation
Cities do not function in isolation. The availability of water, and access to it, depend on the natural resources, ecosystems, river basins and city systems they are embedded in. Thus, the governance of water and sanitation policies involves a wide range of actors at central, intermediate and local levels. Coordination across levels of government and sectoral agencies is required to design consistent development plans.107 In many regions, LRGs are responsible for the provision of basic services, including potable water and sanitation, while central governments are responsible for regulation and bulk water supply. While responsibility is often assigned to local governments (at least officially), their delivery role has evolved in the last few decades. The range of management models varies considerably between countries. With some exceptions, in a majority of countries in Europe, Eurasia, Latin America and North America, as well as in OECD countries in the Asia-Pacific region, urban water and sanitation services are usually managed by public authorities through public utilities or special purpose authorities, generally owned by local or regional authorities.108 In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, 35% of LRGs are in charge of water delivery.109 In many subregions, the use of private operators through collaborations between the public and private sector has been promoted. However, the promise of more PublicPrivate Partnerships (PPP) in middle and low-income countries has not been fully realized,110 and new models are now being implemented to try to reduce the complexity of arrangements for LRGs and increase transparency and accountability to citizens. A recent study also highlights the need for further research on the re-emergence of ‘re-municipalization’, which presents clear opportunities in terms of political leadership.111 Sustainability in water and sanitation also implies the adoption of integrated
103 See ECOSOC (2018), Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, Report to the Secretary General. E/2018/64. 104 UN Water (2018) SDG 6 Synthesis report on Water and Sanitation (unedited version available). 105 Resolution A/RES/64/292. United Nations General Assembly, July 2010. 106 UN Water (2018) SDG 6 Synthesis report on Water and Sanitation (unedited version available). 107 OECD (2015), Principles on water governance, http://www. oecd.org/cfe/regional-policy/ OECD-Principles-on-WaterGovernance-brochure.pdf.
UCLG, GOLD III (2014) provides a regional assessment of the local public provision of basic services. In Europe, public provision remains dominant, either direct, in partnership with other public authorities or through public undertakings (except in France and in England and Wales). The water market is highly fragmented. Tens of thousands of private operators provide water and sanitation to just a quarter of the European population. In Eurasia – Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia – water supply and sanitation providers are owned by municipal and higher-tier governments. In Latin America, around a third of countries have direct municipal systems for water supply and sanitation, in the form of local public companies providing services in urban areas (i.e. over 2,000 in Mexico, 200 in Ecuador, 50 provincial level municipal service operators in Peru, and 14 municipally owned or cooperative operators in Bolivia). Regional governments also play an important role in providing water services in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela. In other countries, national utilities dominate (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and Uruguay).
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UCLG, GOLD III (2014). About a third of African countries (primarily Francophone) retain a single national water utility, and the remaining two thirds (primarily Anglophone) have undertaken some form of decentralization to local jurisdictions. Hundreds of utilities have been established by central governments to collect and distribute bulk water.
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110 Philippe Marin (2009), Public-Private Partnerships for Urban Water Utilities – A Review of Experiences in Developing Countries, PPIAF/World Bank, Washington. 111 A full list of 267 case studies of water re-municipalization is available in Reclaiming Public Services: How cities and citizens are turning back privatisation (2017), edited by Satoko Kishimoto and Olivier Petitjean available at www.tni.org/ reclaiming-public-services.