Summary: Water Facility: EU Commission to fund projects worth €230m to bring safe drinking water to 10m people in ACP countries (19 January 2006: Brussels)
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The 1st Call for Proposals of the Water Facility for an amount of €230 M will help over 10 million people to get access to safe drinking water by 2010, while at the same time around 5 million people will benefit from improved access to basic sanitation facilities. Up to 97 projects have been selected for this first call, which will be followed by a second one in March.
The interest in the Water Facility's first Call for Proposals has been overwhelming. Nearly 800 preliminary proposals (for a total of €5 Billion, requesting €2,7 Billion from the Facility) were received following the call in Nov 2004.
With the €230 M available, a total number of 97 projects can be co-financed. Total costs of these projects amounts to €410 M. Among the selected initiatives, 23 fall into the category of improved water governance (€33.2 M), 12 are in the category of water supply and sanitation infrastructure programmes (€105 M) and 62 are in the category of Civil Society Initiatives (€91.4 M). A reserve list of 39 projects has been established.
European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, declared: "In 2005, we undertook unprecedented commitments to increase our aid, to seek better coordination and efficiency and to set up an EU Strategy for Africa. Now it's time to deliver, actions speak louder than words. By providing access to water, we bring life to millions of people in the ACP countries."
The 2nd Call for Proposals, for an amount of €178 M, will be launched by Mid March 2006.
Apart from financing projects resulting from the Calls for Proposals, the Water Facility is financially supporting several activities of the EUWI, such as the Nile Basin Initiative (€18 M) and has set €20 M aside for the African Water Facility.
One of the targets set in 2000 by the Millennium Development Goals is to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water. And the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), which took place in Johannesburg in 2002, established a complementary target to halve by 2015 the number of people without access to basic sanitation. At the same summit, the EU launched its Water Initiative (EUWI).
As a consequence, the EU Council and the ACP-EC Council of Ministers concluded in 2004 that €500 million be allocated for the Water Facility. Through its 2 tranches of both €250 million, the Water Facility is more than doubling the funding already available through the 9th European Development Fund (EDF) for water and sanitation (€475 million).
The Water Facility is also intended to catalyse additional funding. In fact, for each euro requested from the Water Facility over 80 cents were added from other financing sources by the applicants. This confirms the leverage role the Water Facility has played in the financing of water and sanitation projects.
More information:
www.europa.eu.int/waterfacility and www.euwi.net
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