Water & Sanitation

Projects

552

Completed

434

Active

118

Total funding

8.2bn

IsDB and The Water Sector

Water is a source of life, livelihoods and prosperity. It is an input to almost all production, in agriculture, industry, energy, transport, by healthy people in healthy ecosystems.

Water can also be a cause of death, devastation and poverty, through drought, flood, landslides and epidemic, and through erosion, inundation, desertification, contamination and disease. That is why, starting from 2012, and up until 2020, the World Economic Forum has ranked water crises among the top five global risks in terms of impact.

Despite many improvements, still, 4.2 billion people lack access to safely managed sanitation services, 2.2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services, and 3 billion lack basic handwashing facilities.

While access to improved water sources was around 90 per cent or more in all regions except sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania, widespread inequalities persist within and among countries. As for sanitation, it is estimated that about 80 percent of all industrial and municipal wastewater are released to the environment without any prior treatment.

Water Sector Policy

General Publications

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Adaptable Water Infrastructure in Oman

General Publications

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How Rural Water Points are Changing Lives in Burkina Faso

General Publications

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Water Challenges in IsDB Member Countries

In terms of water resources, IsDB member countries (MCs) show a contrasted picture, but all these countries have one common trait: agriculture water withdrawals are about 80 percent, and reaching 90 percent for some countries, exceeding the world average of 70 percent, and the developed countries, where water abstractions for agriculture do not exceed 40 percent.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is one of the driest regions in the world. The region mainly relies on desalination for water supply services, with 70 percent of the desalination plants in the world located there. With total renewable freshwater resources (TRWR) less than 1,000 cubic meters per capita and per year, the region is water-stressed. Worse, many countries in the region such as Algeria, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, or Yemen etc. are water scarce with TRWR less than 500 cubic meters, and the situation is expected to deteriorate with the demographic growth and effects of climate change.

IsDB MCs in sub-Saharan Africa are slightly better endowed with water resources but do face a different set of challenges. They have “difficult hydrologies" (as opposed to easy hydrologies) marked by plentiful supply of rainwater. However, these rainy events are seasonal and unevenly distributed, leading to frequent floods and droughts.

Water in South and South East Asia could be described as a problem of scarcity amid abundance. While some MCs in the region (e.g. Bangladesh or Indonesia) receive annually more than 4,000 mm (and even up to 6,000 mm in some areas), yet, not all population enjoys access to safe drinking water. In addition, these countries suffer from recurrent flooding events, which tend to damage infrastructure, affect livelihoods, and reverse economic gains.

Water represents a formidable challenge for Central Asia. Much of the water used for drinking, bathing, industry and agriculture comes from Amu Darya and Syr Darya—the two largest rivers in Central Asia.

IsDB Footprint in the Water Sector

Since its inception, the IsDB Group has been actively involved in financing water related activities with cumulative net approvals amounting to US$ 7.7 billion as of September 2021, representing 5.1 percent of the Bank’s total approvals. Whereas yearly total approvals were more than US$ 520 million in 2016 and 2017, there was a marked decline in 2018 and 2019, with an average of US$ 150 million of new commitments during that period for the sector.

Since the Bank’s start of operations, 366 water sector related operations were completed for a total amount of US$ 2.57 billion. The Bank's interventions were demand driven and aimed at expanding access to services. Up to the late 1990s, they were focused, to some extent, on rural settings. But with the global demographic shift to urban areas, the Bank has been increasingly aligned with its MCs' urbanization trends, and the concomitant growing needs in water supply and sanitation services in these areas.

The IsDB is currently implementing more than 142 active operations in the water sector, with current commitments of over US$ 4.56 billion. Given its water challenges, the MENA region is the main beneficiary of IsDB water financing (57 percent), with the largest clients being Iran, Oman, Lebanon, Morocco and Bahrain.

While the focus in the MENA countries has been on improving water supply and sanitation services, and flood protection, sub-Saharan Africa has been the major beneficiary of water for food investments, through the development of small and large irrigation schemes in countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, etc. About 26 percent of the Bank’s financing in the sector went, accordingly, to Africa and Latin America region, while member countries in Asia region received 17 percent of the Bank’s investments in the sector.

Such engagement in the water sector, will be streamlined through the Bank’s water sector policy, which was approved in September 2020, under the overarching vision of “sustainable and resilient water and sanitation systems for all".