Why Africa's water plans fail between the policy and the tap

Mireille Bondo carries two 20-litre jerrycans more than a kilometre to a borehole every morning. The tap at the end of her street has been dry for two years.

"My children need water to wash for school, and I need it for the small vegetables I sell," the 32-year-old, a native of Lukalaba in the Democratic Republic of Congo, tells TRT Afrika. "They say we have a plan for proper water supply in this country. For now, carrying a jerry can on my back is the plan."

More than 4,000 kilometres east, in one of Nairobi's informal settlements, 17-year-old Duncan Ochieng queues up outside a public latrine shared by over fifty households. The doors to each cubicle are broken. The smell is inescapable.

"You go quickly, and you hope you don't get sick," he says.

What frightens the Kenyan teenager more is the rain. "When it floods, this whole place becomes...a toilet," he says. "Last year, my little sister got very sick from the water. The doctor at the clinic said it was cholera."

Across Africa's bustling cities, millions repeat some version of the same routine every morning – hauling water, dodging contaminated runoff, and managing health and other risks that basic public infrastructure should be able to mitigate.

A new global study explains the conundrum of these cities being governed by policies that exist on paper and systems that don't function in reality.

More than plumbing

The 2025 UN-Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water (GLAAS) report, compiled by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF, draws on data from 105 countries.

The central finding is a structural disconnect between what governments promise and what is delivered to citizens.

Fewer than 13% of countries have the financial and human resources to implement their water, sanitation and hygiene plans. In 64% of countries, overlapping government responsibilities create duplication and confusion rather than coordination.

The funding gap between identified needs and available resources stands at 46%.

 "With less than five years to go for our 2030 targets (universal safe and affordable drinking water and access to sanitation), we are at a critical moment," says Dr Alvaro Lario, chair of UN-Water.

For African cities, the consequences are concrete. A water utility may exist, but informal settlements sit outside its grid. A national sanitation policy may be in place, but municipal budgets cannot stretch to sewerage networks.

The global tally of 2.1 billion people without safe drinking water and 3.4 billion without safe sanitation says it all. Africa's urban areas account for a disproportionate share of this public health mess.

Even the water that enters the system leaks out. On average, 39% is classified as non-revenue water – lost to leaks, theft or unmetered connections. The lost revenue could have funded expansion into neighbourhoods like Mireille's.

Regulation offers little backstop: fewer than half of countries publish public reports on drinking-water quality.

"Millions of lives continue to be lost each year," says Dr Ruediger Krech of the WHO.

Flooding and disease

Climate change is compounding every failure. The report finds that 80% of countries now mention climate risks in their water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) policies, but only 20% have measures to finance actions for the most vulnerable populations.

The gap between acknowledging the problem and paying for a response is vast.

In Duncan's settlement, this isn't an abstraction. Heavy rainfall floods the low-lying ground, contaminating shallow water sources and destroying fragile sanitation infrastructure. Seasonal rains bring disease outbreaks.

The health toll is already severe. In 2019, at least 1.4 million people died from preventable causes linked to unsafe water and poor sanitation. In 2024, more than 560,000 cholera cases were reported globally, with major outbreaks across several African countries.

Systemic repair

Released a year ahead of the 2026 United Nations Water Conference scheduled for December, the GLAAS report makes a case for structural overhaul.

"Accelerating progress depends on stronger WASH systems and sectors, including financing, policy, governance, capacity and data," says Cecilia Scharp of UNICEF.

For Mireille and Duncan, stronger systems would mean something basic: water from a tap, a toilet with a door.

The report makes clear that the obstacle is not a shortage of plans but a failure to build the institutions, budgets and infrastructure that turn plans into plumbing.

"We are tired of waiting for things to happen," says Mireille. "We need clean water flowing through our taps and a sanitation system that doesn't leave us exposed to disease outbreaks."