World Bank’s Water Forward initiative: Ensuring equitable water security, or narrowing paths to public solutions?
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Article summary
- Water Forward promises water security for one billion, yet its infrastructure-first approach risks concentrating resources in already viable countries while leaving poorest behind.
- CSOs argue equitable outcomes require explicit investment in rural provider capacity and genuinely inclusive decision-making at local levels.
Launched at the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings on 15 April, Water Forward is a global platform, developed by the World Bank Group in partnership with other multilateral development banks (MDBs) – including the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank and a consortium of philanthropies and finance institutions – to improve access to safe water for one billion people by 2030.
The headline number is striking: four billion people currently experience water scarcity, and water underpins an estimated 1.7 billion jobs worldwide. The political moment matters too: the launch builds momentum ahead of the upcoming 2026 UN Water Conference, where financing the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6 is expected to be a central issue.
At the core of Water Forward are country-led water compacts, through which governments define reform priorities, commit to strengthening institutions and establish investment pathways for their water sectors. Fourteen countries announced their compacts at the launch, with 25 additional compacts now in preparation.
What reform really means
The platform’s language about economic reform is telling. Water compacts aim to improve utility creditworthiness, introduce clearer pricing structures, and create stable policy environments – conditions the Bank says are necessary for “market development”. Despite its history of supporting privatisation (see Observer Spring 2024), the Bank has positioned Water Forward as enabling private participation alongside public sector oversight.
Public Services International warned on World Water Day on 22nd March that combining cost recovery, privatisation and public-private partnerships (PPPs) badly hits service users and taxpayers, undermining human rights to water and sanitation. When cost recovery pricing is imposed through PPPs, private operators shift the burden to consumers through tariff increases. Public utilities – mandated to operate in the public interest – traditionally use subsidies to keep costs low and expand coverage, with cost recovery introduced once universal access improves. By contrast, private companies extract profits, narrowing coverage to profitable urban areas and restricting low-income access.
Yet the deeper problem with Water Forward, according to former World Bank water specialist Joel Kolker, is not the emphasis on private capital mobilisation per se, but the pool of bankable water providers. Most emerging market providers are financially unviable; you cannot “build your way out” with infrastructure alone. In a blog for Global Water Intelligence in June, Kolker argued that what is needed is “stable revenue streams, operational efficiency, and more transparent governance and regulatory regimes.”
An alternative framework exists: Just Water Partnerships, conceived by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water and championed by WaterAid and International Water Management Institute, would ensure that public-private investment portfolios prioritise equitable and sustainable outcomes alongside financing, with genuinely inclusive decision-making at their core.
With the UN Water Conference approaching in December, the Bank faces a critical test: whether its approach to leveraging private investment can deliver water security for a billion people without pricing out the world’s poorest.
