Journal article
The role of public finance to address the global finance gap for drinking water services
- Abstract:
- Meeting SDG target 6.1 for drinking water requires addressing the finance gap between the funds available from tariffs, taxes and transfers, and the life-cycle costs of sustaining these services. While there are limitations to applying repayable finance to address this gap, governments can be well suited to support both drinking water infrastructure and operational needs. Roles for public finance supporting infrastructure construction have been well documented, however public finance tactics to support the ongoing operational needs of services have been less systematically explored. Building on existing literature about this finance gap, this paper analyses examples of public finance from around the world to offer a framework for (1) understanding and comparing strategies by which public finance can bridge, shrink, and fill finance gaps for drinking water services, and (2) analysing the tactics through which public finance can address gaps related to operational needs. This framework expands on and codifies how the finance gap for drinking water services can be – and is being – addressed. The paper also discusses the effectiveness and efficiency of public finance allocations, and how these may interact with the financial viability status of particular services. This can contribute to increasing the investment amounts, efficiency, and effectiveness that are all needed to address the finance gap and accelerate progress towards drinking water services for all.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.6MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1002/wwp2.70054
Authors
+ Bank of America through the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/006tvg625
- Publisher:
- Wiley
- Journal:
- World Water Policy More from this journal
- Volume:
- 12
- Issue:
- 1
- Article number:
- e70054
- Publication date:
- 2025-12-20
- Acceptance date:
- 2025-10-19
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
2639-541X
- ISSN:
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2639541X
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
2330555
- Local pid:
-
pubs:2330555
- Deposit date:
-
2025-11-20
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Kristina Nilsson
- Copyright date:
- 2025
- Rights statement:
- © 2025 The Author(s). World Water Policy published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Policy Studies Organization. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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