Water and Sanitation in South Asia in the Context of the Millennium Development Goals

Abstract

The South Asia region holds the key to the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals related to water and sanitation. Any effort towards achieving the 2015 targets would require investments in the sector that cannot be generated internally by the countries of the region. The authors demonstrate that such efforts will invariably require at least a 10-fold international inflow of investments to the region, besides massive domestic investments and adoption of sector efficiency measures. This article identifies and discusses a plethora of problems that the sector faces in the South Asia region and links the problems to two root causes: inappropriate tariff structures and poor governance. The article also discusses the issue of prevalence of corruption in the water and sanitation sector in the South Asia and concludes that the sector needs wide reforms with a strong political commitment to take on the challenge of the year 2015 development targets.