The World Bank is the largest external financier in the water sector, with a portfolio of US$20 billion in water-related projects under implementation in more than 100 countries. Strong growth in lending is projected. At the request of governments and in collaboration with other donors, the Bank directs critical funding towards countries that would otherwise have difficulty investing in the management of public goods on a long-term, continuous basis. The projects the Bank finances are conceived and supervised according to a well-documented project cycle.

In water resources management, the Bank works across sectors, institutions, and countries. Projects support infrastructure development as well as improvements in the management of water resources at different levels from local to transnational. For example, at the international level, World Bank funding has produced power, environmental, and agricultural benefits for Senegal, Mali, and Mauritania through investments in infrastructure, equipment, and trans-boundary management institutions in the Senegal River Basin. In China, the Tarim Basin Projects resulted in the first fully functional integrated river basin management system. In India, a project introduced new participatory micro-watershed planning approaches and created close to 5,000 water-user groups.

Â

In water supply and sanitation, IDA is the single largest source of financial assistance in low-income countries. In Senegal, for instance, the International Development Association helped the government of Senegal to better organize the water supply sector and extend access to WSS to about 1.6 million people between 1996 and 2006. The Yemen Social Fund for Development provided access to water supply to almost 2 million rural poor. And 600,000 households and 3,000 schools in rural Indonesia have benefited from improved WSS services.

In irrigation and drainage, World Bank projects help countries meet the ever-rising demand for food while raising farmer incomes, reducing poverty, and protecting the environment. For instance, World Bank assistance was central to transforming an inefficient and underperforming irrigation board, Office du Niger, into a financially sustainable, highly productive system. In Sri Lanka’s conflict zones, the World Bank helped to restart irrigated agriculture, bringing some 20,000 hectares of pre-war farmlands back into cultivation.

After a decade of declining lending, the World Bank has recently approved hydropower projects in Africa and Asia, along with rehabilitation projects in Eastern Europe. Projects range from small local plants and rehabilitation of existing facilities to multipurpose transnational projects and pumped storage.

This website presents a large selection of projects in water supply and sanitation, irrigation and drainage, water resources management and hydropower from across the globe. Alternatively, a more complete project search can be conducted using the the customized water search function.

Back to Top