Drinking water and sanitation – Better access to drinking water and sanitation worldwide, higher (safer) quality

Taken from the official translation of the German Sustainable Development Strategy

The indicator is based on data from the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) and only measures the number of people reached through its support. Measures taken by other parties, such as the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Länder and private aid agencies, are not taken into account. The indicator is based exclusively on the planned scope of new funding commitments for drinking water and sanitation projects at the time of submission of the programme proposal to the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. The KfW assesses the number of people who, following completion of the construction projects, will have obtained first-time or improved access to drinking water and sanitation or will be able to benefit from the constructed facilities. Whether people are actually reached cannot be estimated in practice until the infrastructure has become operational, and this is not what the indicator shows. Since a person may obtain first-time or improved access to both drinking water and sanitation, double counting is possible between the two indicators and between two years.

The funding granted by the KfW comprises grants and loans financed from the federal budget and funds raised in the financial markets. The recipients are generally developing and emerging countries, which means that this indicator is related to indicator 17.1 – official development assistance as a proportion of gross national income.

In 2019 the data collection method was revised. Whereas the indicator previously counted people who were reached either directly, e.g. by domestic connections, or indirectly, e.g. the entire population of a country supported by a sectoral reform programme, it now covers only those people who are reached directly. In 2017, for instance, of the total of 28.6 million recorded beneficiaries, 9.5 million were reached indirectly. In 2018, 45.1 million out of a total of 60.3 million were indirect beneficiaries. In 2017 and 2018 the indirectly reached target group represented 33.2% and 74.8% respectively of the total number of beneficiaries. Another change lies in the fact that the figure is based only on the proportion of beneficiaries who have been reached by German-funded share of measures. Contributions made by other donors and the efforts of the host country itself are not counted. Similarly, no consideration is given to energy-efficiency measures, improvements to operational processes or renewals of pumping stations, since these do not lead directly to improved access for the target group.

In recent years, the planned numbers of people who were to obtain access to drinking water and sanitation with German support have always been above the target of ten million. Under the revised methodology, the planned numbers of people who were to obtain first-time or improved access in 2019 were about 14.3 million for drinking water and 6.1 million for wastewater and sanitation.

The commitments made by the KfW with regard to drinking water and sanitation rose by 26.0% from 2012 to 2018 to more than EUR 1 billion. By contrast with the commitments, disbursements have steadily declined since 2015 to the most recent figure of EUR 424.9 million. One of the main reasons for this lies in the time lag between commitments and payments.

This summary table illustrates the evaluations of the indicator by status of previous years. This shows whether the weather symbol for an indicator has been stable or rather volatile in the past years. (Evaluations from the indicator report 2021)