In 2018, the city of Cape Town, South Africa, was close to the “Day Zero”, requiring all taps to be shut off and citizens to fetch a daily 25 litre per person. Though the day-zero was avoided, it is estimated that, at the current rate, South Africa will experience a 17% water deficit by 2030 if no action is taken to respond to existing trends.

The COVID-19 pandemic has acted as a magnifying glass on pressing water and sanitation challenges in African cities, stressing and widening inequalities, especially for the 56% of the urban population living in informal settlements, lacking basic handwashing facilities, and relying on public water points and shared toilets.

Water Governance in OECD Countries: A Multilevel Approach addresses multilevel governance challenges in water policy implementation and identifies good practices for coordinating water policy across ministries, between levels of government, and across local actors at subnational level. Based on a methodological framework, it assesses the main “coordination gaps” in terms of policy-making, financing, information, accountability, objectives and capacity building, and provides a platform of existing governance mechanisms to bridge them. Based on an extensive survey on water governance the report provides a comprehensive institutional mapping of roles and responsibilities in water policy-making at national/subnational level in 17 OECD countries. It concludes on preliminary multilevel governance guidelines for integrated water policy.

The Toolkit for Water Policies and Governance compiles policies, governance arrangements and related tools that facilitate the design and implementation of water management practices in line with the OECD Council Recommendation on Water.

While COVID-19 has hit Peru particularly hard, with more than half a million cases, the pandemic further emphasised the importance of water and sanitation for health, the environment and the economy. The country is not yet on track to meet the targets of SDG 6 “Clean water and sanitation” by 2030, with 3.4 million Peruvians (10.2% of the population) lacking improved access to water services and 8 million Peruvians (25.5%) without improved access to sewerage services, and a large urban-rural divide.

Brazil made significant progress in managing water resources since the adoption of the National Water Law in 1997 and the creation of the National Water and Sanitation Agency (ANA) in 2000. Nevertheless, water security challenges persist and will be aggravated by megatrends such as climate change, population growth, urbanisation, and the economic, social and environmental consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Water policies around the world are in urgent need of reform. Despite improvements in some sectors and countries, progress on meeting national, regional and international goals for managing and securing access to water for all has been uneven. Rallying policymakers around a positive water reform agenda needs to be a high priority and calls for strong political commitment and leadership. This report on Meeting the Water Reform Challenge brings together key insights from recent OECD work and identifies the priority areas where governments need to focus their reform efforts. It calls for governments to focus on getting the basics of water policy right. Sustainable financing, effective governance, and coherence between water and sectoral policies are the building blocks of successful reform.

The COVID-19 pandemic has acted as a magnifying glass on pressing water and sanitation challenges in African cities, stressing and widening inequalities, especially for the 56% of the urban population living in informal settlements, lacking basic handwashing facilities, and relying on public water points and shared toilets. Before the pandemic, African countries and cities were already facing mounting water challenges with, in Sub-Saharan Africa only, 418 million people lacking basic access to water supply and 717 million to sanitation, in addition to concomitant floods, droughts and pollution issues. Megatrends related to climate change, urbanisation and population growth add more pressure on water resources and require urgent attention for African cities to cope with future water challenges. Building on a Survey on Water Governance across 36 cities of all size in Africa, this report provides a regional overview of the allocation of roles and responsibilities for water management, the existence and implementation of institutional, policy and regulatory frameworks, as well as the critical governance gaps that need to be bridged in order to boost city government capacity to drive water security in the continent.