Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Africa Water & Sanitation & Hygiene August 2018 | Page 23

Water Supply
population. The Bank has supported the utility in extending,
strengthening, and maintaining its water and sanitation
infrastructure, as well as improving service efficiency and
establishing modern management practices. These efforts
improved OSE’s operational and financial performance, as
well as its reputation, and were instrumental in enabling the
utility to successfully obtain financing from the domestic
capital market by selling out a bond in 2017. The GWSP is
well-placed to apply such lessons and ideally replicate this
process in Latin America and globally.
The GWSP will continue to provide support through
analytical work, technical assistance and knowledge to
support innovative approaches that leverage commercial
finance for water supply and sanitation. Indeed, at this
week’s Stockholm World Water Week, we are participating
in several sessions on financing for water. The panels
cover topics ranging from “Can Valuing Water Change our
Attitude towards Water?” to “Follow up on the High-Level
Panel Water: Financing & Valuing.”
The work of the GWSP demonstrates that financing to
support water investments may include the full spectrum
of funding sources from micro-finance to vendor or
supplier finance to commercial loans, bonds and even
equity. In Stockholm, a variety of panels will feature a range
of practitioners, experts, and decision makers to explore
how innovative ideas and solutions can be used to tackle
the growing financial crisis that the water and sanitation
sectors are facing.
About the Author
Joel Kolker is the Program
Manager for Global Water Supply
and
Sanitation
Partnership
(GWSP) and Lead Water Supply
and Sanitation specialist with
the World Bank Water Global
Practice. He has worked on water
and infrastructure issues in Asia
and Africa for the last 25 years and is currently leading
the Water Practice’s global effort to blend donor and
concessional finance with domestic commercial finance to
support water and sanitation infrastructure investments.
Before joining the Water Practice, he worked with the
World Bank Institute and the Public Private Infrastructure
Advisory Facility. He holds Master’s degrees from the
University of Pennsylvania in the USA.
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