Safe Water and Sanitation for a Healthier World: A Global View of Progress Towards SDG 6

Among the world’s regions, sub-Saharan Africa is lagging in progress in achieving the SDG 6 targets of universal access to water and sanitation. If sub-Saharan Africa continues with the current pace of progress, achieving the targets by 2030 are unlikely. Various challenges contribute to the slow pace of progress of the access to water and sanitation by the sub-Saharan Africa population. The author categorizes the challenges under two interlinked areas, physical water scarcity and economic water scarcity. The physical water scarcity refers to a lack of available water resources, and the economic water scarcity refers to limited water access resulting from insufficient financial resources. An in-depth analysis of the economic scarcity reveals a significant financing gap in Africa to meet the universal coverage of water and sanitation. The study proposes various options for financing mechanisms to close the gap. The conclusion is that African countries need to put an extraordinary effort into increasing the water and sanitation services’ annual coverage rate to achieve the SDG 6 targets by 2030.