Water - Working with Partners

Working With Partners

The World Bank is increasingly working with partners from multilateral and bilateral agencies and from civil society and the private sector at the country, regional, and global levels.

At the country level, the Bank actively supports the international consensus to strengthen the quality of development assistance through harmonization and alignment. This consensus is framed by the international commitments made under the 2005 Paris Declaration and other international declarations and conferences.

The Bank’s country-level harmonization actions in the water sectors reflect country and sector strategies and priorities identified with clients and partners. Increasingly, scaled-up support—especially to rural water supply and sanitation in low-income countries—is delivered through Poverty Reduction Support Credits (PRSCs) that support government implementation of PRSPs. PRSCs, which channel finance directly through national budgets, offer a good opportunity to harmonize donor support. This kind of budget support is combined with capacity building and technical assistance to achieve sustainable results. For more information, see the Rural Water Supply & Sanitation and Budget Support — Guidelines for Task Teams.

At the regional level, the regional development banks are important partners. In Africa, for example, the African Development Bank has taken a welcome leadership role through its Rural WSS Initiative (pdf) and Africa Water Facility; the World Bank fully supports these initiatives, and a special partnership is developing between the two banks. WSS sector professionals increasingly cooperate, including combined missions, and joint budget support.

At the global level, the World Bank partners with bilateral donor agencies, regional development banks, and other development agencies in the water sector. At the request of other donors, the World Bank hosts an annual donor meeting to harmonize sector approaches at the global level. Contacts with the United Nations (UN) are extensive. The main vehicle for this is UN-WATER, although the World Bank also maintains bilateral contacts with individual UN agencies.

The World Bank also maintains regular contacts with civil society groups through periodic meetings and joint analytical work. A scoping study for a World Bank–Civil Society Dialogue on Urban Water Supply and Sanitation was recently finalized.