Progress report for
Making Water Count
Achievement at a glance
Our efforts have had a significant impact on improving access to water and sanitation services. Including leveraged funds, we've reached a total of 5,401,008 people with safely managed drinking water. This figure is almost evenly split between females (2,692,576) and males (2,708,432), demonstrating our commitment to gender equity in our interventions. In terms of sanitation, we've provided 168,427 people with access to safely managed sanitation facilities. Of these, 82,417 are female and 86,010 are male.It's important to note that these figures represent the total impact achieved by our projects, including co-funding from various partners. The direct impact attributable to DGIS funding is also substantial, with 1,778,487 people gaining access to safe drinking water and 92,174 to improved sanitation.
We successfully contracted the full €40 million entrusted to us by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the first five-year phase of our Making Water Count programme. Our total contracted portfolio grew to an impressive €143 million, surpassing our leverage target with a ratio of 1 : 5. This means that we have already exeeded our target portfolio of €120 million, demonstrating our commitment to mobilizing finance and developing sustainable WASH markets.
Since 2019, we've supported 183 projects, including 40 initiatives helping WASH enterprises navigate COVID-19 challenges. Those projects support a total of 935 water and sanitation enterprises.
Challenges faced in implementation
Our achievements of Making Water Count was not without challenges. One key challenge was balancing our innovative finance approach with directly reaching the lowest-income populations. As highlighted in our Mid-term Review, there can be trade-offs between strengthening the private WASH sector and serving those in rural areas or informal urban settlements. We are working to address this by carefully structuring deals and verifying that our interventions reach low-income groups effectively.Another challenge has been measuring and reporting comprehensive outcomes and impacts, which was noted as an area for improvement in our review. We have made this a top priority and are enhancing our Impact & Knowledge team to better capture and communicate our results.
The ongoing effects of climate change posed difficulties for many of our projects and partners. Increasing water scarcity and extreme weather events threatened the sustainability of some water and sanitation solutions. We responded by mainstreaming climate considerations into all our interventions and focusing more on climate-resilient approaches.
Gender inequalities continue to be a challenge in the WASH sector. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by poor water and sanitation access but often excluded from decision-making roles. We are striving to involve more women in our projects and integrate gender intentionality throughout our work.
Finally, the complex nature of blended finance deals and market development initiatives means progress can be slower than traditional grant-based approaches. Building the capacity of local financial institutions and enterprises to engage in the WASH sector takes time. However, we believe this approach will lead to more sustainable, scalable solutions in the long run.
Next Steps
Randi KäuferBeneficiaries
Our ultimate beneficiaries are low-income populations in Africa and Asia who lack access to safe water and sanitation services. This includes both rural communities and those living in urban and peri-urban informal settlements. We particularly focus on reaching women and girls, who often bear the greatest burden of water collection and are most affected by poor sanitation.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the WASH sector are also key beneficiaries of our work. Through our market development activities, we provide these enterprises with funding, technical assistance, and connections to investors. This helps them scale up their operations and reach more customers with affordable WASH solutions.
Local financial institutions benefit from our capacity building and de-risking support, enabling them to develop dedicated WASH portfolios. This not only helps them tap into a new market but also contributes to expanding finance for the sector as a whole.
Impact investors and asset managers are beneficiaries in the sense that we help them identify and structure viable investment opportunities in the WASH sector. By demonstrating the potential for both social impact and financial returns, we're opening up new avenues for mission-aligned capital deployment.
Government agencies and policymakers indirectly benefit from our work as we help demonstrate effective market-based approaches to achieving universal WASH access. Our initiatives often complement public sector efforts and can inform policy decisions.
Lastly, the broader WASH sector benefits from the knowledge and innovations we generate. By testing new financing mechanisms and business models, we're contributing to the global body of evidence on what works in accelerating progress towards SDG 6.
Actions
We've taken numerous actions to positively impact people reached with water and sanitation services in 2024. For low-income populations, we've extended our work with results-based financing incentives ensuring these services reach underserved communities.We have extended our funder base to be able to leverage more money towards the water and sanitation sector.
To address climate and gender challenges, we've partnered with Sidian Bank to develop a loan portfoliotargeting climate and gender disbursements.