Financing water and sanitation resilience contributes to climate mitigation and adaptation - so where is the money?

Climate finance is seen as a potential solution to the financing gap in the WASH sector, but this policy brief finds that the majority of climate finance is provided as loans, which are not suitable for water and sanitation services as the full costs are hard to recover from users. Furthermore, the procedures for accessing climate funding are time-consuming and complicated, and only larger projects stand a chance. Safe water enterprises lack a path to scale without recognition and support from national governments. The policy brief includes short case studies from Cambodia, India and the Philippines.

This is one of four policy briefs that highlight challenges, good practices and dilemmas and provide examples to inspire climate action in the WASH sector. They support policymakers and practitioners to promote ways to mitigate and adapt to climate change while strengthening efforts to fulfil the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation. The policy briefs are based on the experiences of Dutch funded climate change adaptation and mitigation initiatives in the sectors and discussions with actors looking for ways to integrate climate action with activities to strengthen water and sanitation services for people in vulnerable situations. The other three are on: climate change mitigation; climate change adaptation; and climate change resilience and vulnerability.