Africa's Water and Sanitation Infrastructure

Book excerpt: Africa's Water and Sanitation InfrastructureùAccess, Affordability, and Alternatives integrates a wealth of primary and secondary information to present a quantitative snapshot of the state of the WSS sectors in Africa. It explains the sectoral institutional structures and utility performance and articulates the volume and quality of financing available over time. The authors also evaluate the challenges to the WSS sectors and explore the factors that govern the expansion of coverage over time. Finally, the authors estimate spending needs for WSS, arriving at a funding gap for meeting the MDGs. The proposed directions for the future draw on lessons learned from best practices and present the menu of choices available to African countries, bearing in mind that the challenges differ to a significant extent among countries and solutions must be tailored to national or regional conditions. --Book Jacket.