By Prabin Rokaya, Director, Jagaran Nepal (a youth-led NGO from Nepal)
Most of the conferences are only focussed on identifying problems and recommending solutions without adequate discourse on legal, institutional and financial mechanisms to implement those recommendations. Budapest Water Summit Youth Forum was different in a way that it had separate sessions on Water Governance, and Financing the implementation of water and sanitation SDGs.
One of the reasons for low achievement of many recommendations and actions plans is their inadequacy in clearly defining financial set ups. Who will invest and how define successful implementation. Some scholars even argue that some of MDG goals are not likely to be achieved by 2015 in many least developed countries mainly due to lack of adequate financial resources of national governments to obtain these set targets.
According to WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation released in early 2013, 768 million people do not have access to water, and 2.5 billion people are deprived of proper sanitation. WHO estimate total spending, excluding programme costs, required in developing countries to meet the water component of the MDG target is US$ 42 billion, while for sanitation it is US$ 142 billion. The current national governments’ budget allocation on water and sanitation does not seem likely to end this problem soon enough. Hence, private sector investment in water and sanitation infrastructure is a prerequisite to achieve water and sanitation SDGs.
The session on ‘financing the implementation of water and sanitation SDG’ convened by World Youth Parliament for Water emphasized that the existing and future water challenge can be solved only by multi-stakeholder approach, i.e. cooperation among national governments, international donor community, private sector and civil society and youths. National government should allocate adequate portion of their budget dedicated to water and sanitation, and international donor community should prioritize investments in water and sanitation related infrastructure. Private sector investment should be encouraged through tax discounts, subsidies and awards.
The forum also highlighted that it is only through a collaborative effort of all stakeholders, water and sanitation SDGs can be achieved. Policy work of governments, soft loans of international banks, private sector investment, civil society campaigns, and youth leadership are the key driving factors. Youths, as agents of change, can play catalytic cross-cutting role in this whole process. From local level innovation in technology and approach to entrepreneurship in water and sanitation, from grassroots advocacy to national level policy discourse, youths can actively contribute. The session concluded that youths should be considered as “development partner” if SDGs related to water and sanitation are to be achieved.
