Water investment and policies in the Mediterranean

AquaFed proposed stronger, independent regulation and greater investment in local skills and capacity as two ways of de-risking water and sanitation infrastructure projects in the Mediterranean region.

The region, like all others, faces the challenge of trying to attract more private capital for water and sanitation infrastructure investment. So greater focus is needed on de-risking and putting in place mechanisms to blend private and public finance for projects.

We also urged IFIs and donors to focus more on O+M investment to help ensure projects can deliver over the medium and long term.

We made these comments at the 3rd EU-Union for Mediterranean (UFM) Water Investment Policy Forum, this week. We used the opportunity to call for greater coherence and holistic policy on water across ministries in countries – for example asking whether water and sanitation features highly enough in national NDCs and NAPs to tackle climate change.

Finally, while we noted the continuing pipeline of projects in the region for supply via non-conventional water sources, particularly desalination, along with other organisations, we suggested greater focus on the demand-side and increasing water efficiency.