Brochures
Midway Milestones for ADB’s Water Financing Program 2006—2010
In 2006, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) committed to double its water investments to boost development
results. Through the Water Financing Program 2006–2010 (WFP), ADB is poised to deliver new water investments
totaling over $10 billion, and leverage about the same amount from partners to improve water security for more than
300 million people in Asia and the Pacific.
Three years onward, ADB is taking stock of WFP’s outcomes and activities. As of March 2009, $4.1 billion had been posted
in new investments, with another $4.3 billion programmed through 2010. WFP will also cover more ground in areas
increasingly important to ADB and its clients—rural water services, sanitation, climate change adaptation, disaster
management, governance, and knowledge management.
At midway, WFP shows encouraging progress with good potential for further expansion.
Cofinancing Increased
For every dollar approved recently for new water projects, ADB was able to
catalyze almost a dollar in additional investments from either government,
private sector, or other cofinancing sources.
From January 2006 to March 2009, ADB approved 69 new water-related
loans amounting to $4.1 billion. An additional $3.6 billion was leveraged
from ADB’s development partners. This sets the stage for much-needed
further increases in the coming years.
An ADB-administered, multidonor facility—the Water Financing Partnership
Facility (WFPF)—has also generated $43 million in grants committed by
strategic partners who share ADB’s vision for the region’s water sector.
These grants are also working to leverage further investments.
Water’s Share in ADB Portfolio Boosted
A series of regional and in-country water financing dialogues helped boost
ADB’s programmed water investments for 2009–2010 to $4.3 billion.
By the end of 2008, water-related projects accounted for 24% of ADB’s
ongoing project portfolio, and this is expected to rise to 25% by 2010.
As of 2008, the breakdown of ADB’s portfolio of ongoing water projects
was 54% for urban water, 25% for rural water, and 21% for basin water.
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Water projects in 2006 to 2009 were designed and approved for impact on
the ground. ADB was counting on this when it committed to specific WFP
targets. Table 1 illustrates the expected impact of projects approved from
2006 to March 2009 towards the WFP targets.
The WFP targets support the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which
call on governments to halve by 2015 the proportion of people without
sustainable access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation. For Asia
and the Pacific, with the 1990 figures as take-off point for the MDG race,
this meant providing access to 855 million people without safe drinking
water and 2.1 billion people without improved sanitation. The WFP is
targeted to benefit over 300 million people in the region.
The WFP is one of the first international programs with clear outcome
targets for meeting the MDGs. Through these targets, WFP recognizes that
giving the poor access to safe drinking water improves their health and
saves them time that they can use to study, earn a living, and generally
live better lives. WFP also recognizes that improved sanitation protects the
poor from health risks and translates to major economic gains, mainly
from tourism revenues and health care savings. Proper management of
water resources also reduces vulnerabilities to floods or water pollution,
and preserves sources of livelihood, be they wetlands, farmlands, or
rivers. The WFP targets show that reducing poverty continues to drive
ADB’s investments, and that improving rural and urban water services and
water resources in river basins is key to reducing poverty.
Table 1. Delivery by the ADB Water Projects under the Water Financing Program1
| Expected Outcomes |
Target |
Expected Outcomes from WFP Projects
Approved through the 1st quarter of 2009 |
| Sustainable access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation |
200 million people |
95.7 million people |
| More productive and efficient irrigation and drainage services affecting
the livelihoods of people |
40 million people |
8.1 million people |
| Reduced risk of flooding affecting people and reduced recurring
damage to vital infrastructure |
100 million people |
35.1 million people |
| Introduction of integrated water resources management in river basins |
25 river basins |
24 river basins |
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ADB will continue to use WFP to help clients adapt to
changing needs in the region, including the food price crisis,
climate change, risk management, governance, and
knowledge management. To ensure that the program
continues to respond to the current needs of the region,
the WFP will bring several areas into stronger focus from
2008–2010.
The recent global strains on increasing demand and
diminishing supply of food produce highlighted the urgent
need for greater investments in rural water. In May 2008,
ADB committed $500 million in immediate budgetary
support and, in 2009, ADB will double its investments to
$2 billion to alleviate the food price crisis in the region.
WFP can be used to provide investments for rural
infrastructure and services for safe drinking water,
sanitation, irrigation, and drainage.
Climate change, with its multitude of adverse impacts, is
another threat gaining momentum. Measures are needed to
protect the most vulnerable from the worst of these impacts,
which include rising sea levels, melting glaciers, more
frequent and intense storms, and greater variability in
rainfall. WFP will help improve climate change projections,
impact assessments, and adaptation strategies, including
investments to increase water security and conservation, risk
management, more energy-efficient water services, flexible
infrastructure, and capacity development.
A concerted effort to improve governance is also on WFP’s
agenda. Poor governance continues to cause bottlenecks,
such as weak institutions, low levels of public sector revenue
mobilization, misguided public spending priorities, and
insufficient regulation. WFP will expand assistance for ADB
and its clients to improve governance through reforms and
capacity building.
In support of WFP, ADB will continue to publish guidelines,
studies, briefs, and knowledge products on a wide range
of topics. These will help to document good practice,
track trends and innovations, and test new approaches
for replication.
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Marking the midway point of WFP at the Water Leaders’ Summit in
Singapore in June 2008, ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda outlined seven
priority areas for water investments in the region in the coming years:
- Rural Water Services. Much more must be done to help the rural
poor escape poverty; enjoy safe drinking water; benefit from improved
sanitation; and build vibrant, water-secure communities. Increasing
investments in rural water services is particularly urgent to increase
agricultural productivity and ease escalating food prices.
- Urban Utility Performance. Countries in the region need to
develop more bankable urban projects that improve water utility
performance. Business as usual will not benefit the urban poor. Cities and
towns need to develop innovative partnerships among governments,
corporations, and civil society to provide affordable, 24/7 water service to
paying customers.
- Integrated Water Resources Management in River Basins.
All stakeholders must collaborate to develop functioning, integrated water
resource management systems across entire river basins; to conserve water
for the sake of sustainability; and to clean up the environment with
approaches that affect households and, in turn, rivers and seas. This will
also require significantly higher investments in comprehensive sanitation
systems all the way “from toilet to river.”
- Climate Change Adaptation. While mitigation is largely “in the
air,” adaptation is mostly about water. Governments need to invest in
strategies, tools, and capacity to prepare for increased floods, droughts,
and storms as a result of climate change. This includes better predictive
capacity, modern design standards, and climate proofing of development
projects.
- Disaster Preparedness. Water-related disasters cause more
losses of lives and destruction in Asia and the Pacific than anywhere else
in the world. All sectors should invest more in reducing vulnerability, and
increasing resilience of communities by improving preparedness. This is
as much an institutional challenge as it is about building infrastructure,
and both need more attention in the future.
- Inspired Leadership. Now is the time for inspired leadership to
improve water governance, performance, and knowledge management.
With strong and inclusive leadership, and knowledge networking to draw
better on the region’s rich experience, reforms can be accelerated through
effective policies, appropriate legislation, and stronger organizations,
especially at the local level.
- Partnerships. Investing in partnerships will be the key to
delivering results. In such a connected world, water management affects
almost all sectors. Partnerships pay huge dividends. ADB’s resources and
the WFP are platforms for working with clients and partners. These
partnerships can catalyze and leverage investments and pool the region’s
knowledge in these priority areas to raise the standard of living for
hundreds of millions of poor people in the region and increase water
security for all.
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