official development assistance (ODA) and advances in Water and Sanitation Subsectors

What is it about?

This paper explores the aid effectiveness by studying the effect of aid, aid volatility, and key development indicators, focusing on safe access to water and sanitation (W&S) in both urban and rural areas. Despite the importance of official development assistance (ODA) for these two subsectors, little global attention is given to its importance and its connectivity with different socio economic factors. In this study, we focus on the countries that receive aid for water and sanitation. We find that aid does have a discernible impact on access to W&S, particularly in rural areas, but that this impact is reduced by aid volatility, there is a clear evidence that ODA for water and sanitation lacks the appropriate orientation, and is not targeting most of the areas that are really in need.

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Why is it important?

This study tries to fill the gap in the literature that deals with development aid for water and sanitation. It explores the impact of aid and aid volatility on safe access to water and sanitation, using an available OECD/DAC database. Specifically, it analyzes several socioeconomic factors and the effect of aid with respect to the recipient countries using the data for 139 countries covering the period of 1995-2016. Many pieces of work focused on the costs and the benefits of the development of water and sanitation sector and its impact on improving the health sector, the focus of our analysis is the importance of financing water and sanitation and to explore the impact of given aid and aid volatility on the improvement of these two subsectors specifically to attain the international targets for water and sanitation. And in highlighting that aid for W&S lacks the appropriate orientation, and is not targeting most of the areas that are really in need.