Making Every Drop Count: Financing Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Promotion in Ethiopia

Ethiopia has some of the lowest coverage of access to safe water and appropriate sanitation in the world, with figures estimated at 24 percent and 15 percent respectively in the year 2000. Where there is coverage, the level of service may be poor, providing, on average, far less than the WHO recommended minimum of 20 litres per person. This situation has had a dire impact on progress towards meeting the MDG targets in Ethiopia. The poor water and sanitation coverage contributes to an infant mortality rate of 180 per 1,000, very low economic productivity and a proportion of girls to boys in school of just 75 per cent
A national Water Supply and Sewerage Sub-sector Development Plan does exist to tackle this situation. It contains good practice on cost recovery, decentralisation and stakeholder inclusion, and ambitious targets for coverage. But obtaining enough finance to fulfil the targets will be a great problem.