W/Bank Blames Weak Governance, Inefficiencies For Nigeria’s Water Supply Crisis

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The World Bank has attribut­ed the persistent challenges in Nigeria’s urban water supply sector to weak governance, political interference, low cost recovery, and inefficiencies in infrastructure planning, de­spite decades of investment.

Judith Warmate of the World Bank Nigeria Country Office said this on the sidelines of the Urban Water Supply Sector Report in Nigeria: Prog­ress, Challenges and the Way Forward workshop in Abuja on Monday.

The workshop was organ­ised by the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and Sani­tation in partnership with the development partners.

It aimed to clarify challeng­es in urban water reforms, identify replicable success factors, and draw lessons from local and international expe­riences.

She said key interventions include the Kaduna State Water Supply Project and the Anambra Water Supply and Sanitation Project, in which the World Bank contributed about $67 million, alongside $55 million from the Anambra State government and $5.5 mil­lion from the implementing corporation.

According to her, earlier interventions include the Na­tional Water Rehabilitation Project (1992–2001), covering 21 states, including the Federal Capital Territory, followed by the Multi-State Water Supply Project in states such as Tara­ba and Katsina.

Ms. Warmate said the sector later shifted to reform-focused programmes, including Urban Water Sector Reform Projects I, II and III, which formed the basis for the Sustainable Ur­ban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (SUR­WASH) programme.

She explained that SUR­WASH is a results-based fi­nancing programme under the Programme-for-Results (PforR) instrument, where disbursement is tied to in­dependently verified perfor­mance outcomes rather than inputs.

She disclosed that cumu­lative World Bank financing in the subsector is estimated at $1.27 billion, while SUR­WASH funding was revised from about $700 million to $410 million due to concerns about non-performance.

Ms. Warmate said that, de­spite investments, the sector still faces structural challeng­es, including political control over tariffs, staffing, and util­ity governance, weak cost re­covery, and high non-revenue water.

She said at best, Kaduna State recovered about 40 per­cent of operation and main­tenance costs, while most utilities remain far below sus­tainable levels.

She added that power sup­ply constraints, reliance on generators, weak metering systems, poor demand esti­mation, and overdesigned in­frastructure continue to affect service delivery and sustain­ability.

Ms. Warmate said political economy constraints, weak in­stitutional capacity, poor main­tenance culture, and reliance on individual reform cham­pions continue to undermine long-term reforms.

She added that reforms of­ten lose momentum when key champions exit due to weak in­stitutional embedding.

Despite these challenges, she said earlier reform pro­grammes improved water connections and collections in some states and placed sector reform on the national agenda.

Ms. Warmate said SUR­WASH is shifting focus to­wards results-based financ­ing, linking disbursement to independently verified service delivery outcomes, while com­bining PforR and Investment Project Financing to strength­en systems.

“The programme also in­tegrates water, sanitation and hygiene interventions at the local government level to im­prove coordination, account­ability, and sustainability”.

She added that capaci­ty-building cohorts in Kat­sina and Gombe states were in their third cycle, focusing on utility creditworthiness, financial management, and business planning, with regu­lators also involved.

She said the programme had expanded to additional states, including Lagos, in col­laboration with development partners such as WaterAid.

In a related contribution, the French Development Agency (AFD) said Nigeria’s water challenge is not funding but weak system sustainabil­ity and limited utility auton­omy.

The AFD Deputy Director in Abuja, Mahamadou Diar­ra, said Africa has abundant water resources but struggles to convert them into reliable potable water services due to weak systems.

He said funding from devel­opment partners has been sub­stantial, but sustainability and effective utilisation remain major gaps.

Mr. Diarra said functional water systems must integrate production, distribution, bill­ing, and revenue collection, noting that service reliability is key to cost recovery.

He added that most utili­ties depend heavily on state governments, while stronger political commitment has consistently improved service delivery in better-performing states.

Also speaking, the AFD Deputy Head of Water and Sanitation Division, Madeleine Portmann, said long-standing technical rec­ommendations in Nigeria’s water sector have not been fully implemented.

She said in Kano State, earlier identified infrastruc­ture interventions were only partially executed, adding that many recommendations made decades ago remain outstand­ing.

Ms. Portmann said the AFD’s experience in Nigeria over the past 12 years showed persistent implementation gaps despite strong technical designs.

She reaffirmed the AFD’s commitment to supporting reforms that strengthen insti­tutions and ensure sustainable water service delivery.

The Development Partners Group comprises the Agence Française de Développement, the World Bank, the African Development Bank, UNICEF, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Wat­erAid, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, and oth­ers.

The group supports Ni­geria’s water and sanitation sector through financing, technical assistance and poli­cy collaboration aimed at im­proving service delivery and expanding access to safe water and sanitation services.