President of Hungary János Áder (left), President of Mauritius Ameenah Gurib-Fakim (middle) and Guangzhe CHEN, Senior Director for World Bank Water Global Practice (left) hosting a press conference at the Budapest Water Summit 2016.
We cannot talk about water and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 without also looking at everything that depends on it: from climate, food and electricity to families, farms and ecosystems.
It is thus quite simple, if we don’t get it right on water, then we will not succeed in achieving the other SDGs either.
Participants of the meeting agreed that if everything was left unchanged in the next 15-20 years, there would be a serious water crisis.
The discussions were based on two World Bank Group reports commissioned by the Panel to consider the constraints and opportunities for increasing financing for water infrastructure: After the meeting, the High-Level Panel on Water issued a statement in which they: Call on all countries and stakeholders to mobilize additional funds to the sector, to support the achievement of SDG6 and water-related targets.
Recognize that mobilizing additional concessional funds will help—but will not be sufficient.
Encourage commercial finance institutions to partner with the public sector towards improving captal and operating effieiency To shift toward a financing landscape catalyzed by official resources being able to attract untapped private resources, HLPW called upon MDBs to use all available instruments and resources, and to focus a large part of their programs to the support of reforms and actions to improve the financial viability of service providers.
For our part, the World Bank Group is helping countries achieve these targets sustainably and inclusively, as Mr. Levy illustrated in his remarks.
It’s encouraging to see that HLPW’s call to action has ignited discussion at the highest level on overcoming the financing challenge.
We at the World Bank Water Global Practice will continue our support to countries in tackling this challenge so as to achieve the water-related SDGs and together with our clients and partners in helping to end poverty by 2030 and boost shared prosperity for the poorest people.