Improving water security for 100 million people by 2030
Delivering global rural water services through results-based contracts
McNicholl, D., Hope, R., Money, A., Lane, A., Armstrong, A., Dupuis, M., Harvey, A., Nyaga, C., Womble, S., Allen, J., Katuva., J., Barbotte, T., Lambert, L., Staub, M., Thomson, P., and Koehler, J. (2021)
The first multi-country pilot for results-based funding of rural water services was launched in October 2020. The Uptime Catalyst Facility, a UK-registered charity, issues non-repayable funding to rural water maintenance providers after reliability results are confirmed. Services are now being funded in seven countries serving an estimated 1.5 million rural people. The initial scope of the initiative covered five service providers across four African countries to support reliable water services for 1.3 million rural people at a cost of less than USD 1 per person per year. Water users paid one third of the costs.
Experience from this pilot is now informing how the results-based approach can be streamlined to enable resilient services at the scale of 100 million people. Through the pilot, we have adapted the contract design, with the ultimate ambition of scaling service provision to 100m people.
