The Global Head and National Coordinator of the Organised Private Sector in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (OPS-WASH) and Co-Founder of the Private Sector Engagement Platform (PSEP), Dr. Nicholas Igwe, has called for urgent structural reforms across Africa’s water sector, arguing that the continent’s persistent water and sanitation challenges stem more from institutional failures than from a shortage of funding.
Speaking at a conference focused on bridging the financing gap in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector, Igwe warned that unless African governments create enabling environments for private sector participation, the continent could face worsening social and economic crises linked to inadequate access to clean water and sanitation services.
According to him, Africa’s water sector remains trapped in a cycle of underinvestment not because capital, technology or expertise are unavailable, but because governments have failed to establish the institutional architecture necessary to attract and sustain private investment.
“We need a platform that can bring together the private sector, government institutions, civil society organisations, development partners and other stakeholders to discuss the challenges confronting the sector and develop practical solutions.
“The water sector must be transformed in the same way telecommunications, energy, housing and healthcare have been transformed,” he stressed.
Dr. Igwe also pointed out that no single institution currently possesses the capacity to simultaneously provide the political backing, financial market access and sector-wide coordination required to drive meaningful transformation in the WASH sector.
He explained that political will without access to finance merely produces commitments that cannot be implemented, while financial market access without coordination creates funding instruments that lack viable projects.
Similarly, coordination without accountability leads to agreements that offer little regulatory protection for investors.
“The platform we need requires all three elements working together. No existing institution currently provides all three in combination,” he noted.
He argued that Africa’s water crisis should not be viewed as a technological or financial challenge alone but as a structural and institutional failure that has prevented available resources from reaching communities that desperately need them.
Igwe questioned how a world capable of building communication infrastructure across oceans, landing rovers on Mars and developing sophisticated medical technologies still has hundreds of millions of people without reliable access to safe water and sanitation.
“More than 600 million people across Africa still lack reliable access to safe water, while nearly twice that number lack access to basic sanitation.
“This is not because technology does not exist. It is not because knowledge does not exist. It is because we have failed to build institutions that allow capital, technology and organisational capacity to flow where they are needed most,” he said.
While acknowledging that the global water sector faces an estimated annual financing gap of about $114 billion, Igwe maintained that funding itself is not the principal challenge.
He pointed to projections showing that Nigeria’s sanitation economy could become a $6 billion market by 2030, yet private investment in the sector remains minimal.
“The issue is not the absence of money. The issue is the absence of an institutional framework that makes investment possible. We have the capital, the technology, the engineering expertise and even investors willing to participate.
“What we lack is the arrangement that allows these elements to come together in a stable and sustainable manner,” he stated.
Igwe said successful infrastructure sectors are not built merely on the availability of materials but on systems that properly organise and coordinate those materials.
“The water sector’s challenge is an architectural problem. We have the building materials, but we have not designed the structure that allows them to work together effectively,” he said.
Igwe highlighted the transformation of Africa’s telecommunications sector over the past three decades.
He recalled that in the 1990s telecommunications services across many African countries were largely controlled by governments, making access to communication difficult and limiting opportunities for private investment.
However, following liberalisation policies, private operators entered the market, bringing billions of dollars in investment, expanding network coverage and making mobile communication widely accessible.
“Today, we have companies operating across Africa, providing services to millions of people. That transformation happened because governments created an environment that allowed private capital and innovation to enter the market,” he said.
He said the energy sector followed a similar path. For many years, governments controlled tariffs and operations, often making decisions based on political considerations rather than commercial sustainability.
Over time, however, reforms enabled private sector participation and improved service delivery.
The healthcare sector, he added, also evolved from heavy reliance on donor agencies and non-governmental organisations to models that increasingly attract private investment.
Countries such as Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda, he noted, established institutional frameworks that enabled private healthcare financing while maintaining support from development partners.
“As donor funding declines globally, countries that built institutional structures are now better positioned to attract private investment and sustain healthcare delivery,” he said.
Despite growing interest in sustainable infrastructure, Igwe identified several barriers that continue to discourage private investment in the water sector.
Among them is revenue and off-take risk, which he described as one of the biggest concerns for investors.
He cited examples from Singapore and South Africa, where treated wastewater is sold to industries and households under long-term concession agreements, creating predictable revenue streams that make investment attractive.
“Private investors go where there is revenue certainty. When there are guaranteed off-takers and sustainable payment mechanisms, capital flows naturally,” he said.
Another challenge is risk misallocation. According to him, investors remain wary of committing billions of dollars to projects that could be undermined by changes in government policies or political leadership.
He noted that while sectors such as energy and telecommunications have developed mechanisms to mitigate these risks, the water sector continues to struggle.
Long investment recovery periods also pose challenges. Unlike sectors where returns may be realised within a few years, water infrastructure projects often require 15 to 20 years before investors can recover their capital.
Additional obstacles include weak regulatory institutions, political interference, poor project preparation, inadequate feasibility studies, weak legal frameworks and the absence of standardised contractual arrangements.
“Investors need independent regulators, bankable contracts, reliable payment systems and legal certainty. Without these, it becomes difficult to attract long-term capital,” he said.
Dr. Igwe also challenged civil society organisations to broaden their advocacy beyond demands for increased government spending.
While acknowledging the important role CSOs have played in promoting accountability and access to water services, he argued that public budgets alone cannot bridge the enormous financing gap confronting the sector.
He noted that governments must simultaneously fund healthcare, education, housing, agriculture, transportation and energy, making it unrealistic to expect public resources alone to solve the water crisis.
According to him, water remains the foundation upon which virtually every other sector depends.
“You cannot talk about food security without water. You cannot discuss healthcare without clean water. You cannot achieve sustainable housing without water. You cannot improve educational outcomes when children spend hours every day fetching water before going to school,” he said.
Dr. Igwe warned that failure to reform the sector could trigger significant social and economic instability across the continent.
He urged governments to engage more actively with private investors, establish independent regulatory frameworks and create long-term institutional structures capable of supporting sustainable infrastructure financing.
He maintained that the solutions already exist but require deliberate action to bring together governments, investors, development partners and civil society within a coordinated framework.
“The challenge is no longer identifying the problem. The challenge is building the institutional architecture that allows solutions to work. Unless we create that architecture, the water crisis will persist despite the availability of capital, technology and political commitments,” he said.
