Why We Must WIN the Fight against Corruption in the Water Sector

read more.Corruption is draining the water sector. It reduces economic growth, discourages investment, violates human dignity, increases health risks and robs the poor of livelihoods and access to water.

An Unaddressed Issue

While causing so much harm, this lack of good governance, transparency, honesty and integrity is largely unaddressed in water and development. It is a stumbling block for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on poverty, water supply and sanitation, and environmental sustainability. A sector-wide effort to fight corruption is needed in water worldwide, within the framework of broader efforts at governance reform and greater transparency.

Transparency International defines corruption as the misuse of entrusted power for private gain. In the water sector, unethical behaviour occurs within government, between the government and private sectors, and between public officials and consumers.

Hurting through Subtraction

Corruption hurts the water sector and thus poor people by limiting the expansion and effective delivery of water supply and sanitation services and the overall management of water resources. It hurts the poor by diverting investments that would benefit them.

Although the exact cost in human terms of this grievous leakage of revenue and misallocation of monetary and financial resources is still unknown, its negative effects are undeniable. The poor suffer from increased water expenses, weakened or denied access to services, lost dignity, poor health, eroded democracy and social equity. Invisibly, corruption helps deprive 1.25 billion people of access to drinking water, according to the UN’s World Water Development Report 2006.

Beyond direct human suffering, corruption intensifies the world’s regional water scarcities. It promotes the excessive withdrawal from surface and underground water sources, pollutes freshwater resources, encourages inefficient freshwater use and undermines sustainability. A lack of transparency hinders well-qualified contracting and ethical operating in the water sector, and it undermines the financial stability of water utilities and thus their ability to offer reliable service to all their clients and extend services to all citizens.

Discovering Solutions

Promoting good governance and transparency to root out this unethical behaviour in the water sector won’t be easy. Long ignored, and wilfully overlooked by some, corruption is only now being seriously confronted. Fortunately, anti-corruption measures exist. Learning from other broader sectoral reform efforts, the water sector can test their applicability and tailor them where appropriate.

Some examples: communities can learn to monitor services and construction; transparency and access to information in communities and utilities can be developed; and the water sector itself can reform its public institutions and regulatory and financial arrangements to promote more ethical behaviour.

The scope and scale of corruption in water is not well known. Increasingly, however, the water sector recognises that corruption is a major hurdle to the improvement of everyday lives. Appropriate solutions must be found for the problems identified, since corruption varies by socio-political setting. One size solutions do not fit all.

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