World Water Day: How Output-based Aid Can Help the Poor to Access Water Services

March 8, 2010|Feature Stories
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Photo: Arne Hoel / World Bank

Output-based Aid (OBA) is a results-based approach that is being used to help poor people in developing countries gain access to basic services, including safe water. In the Philippines, GPOBA is providing US$225,000 in technical assistance to help create a National OBA Facility  that will manage the provision of affordable and safe water to poor households.

 
The facility is the result a successful OBA pilot project to provide affordable piped potable water to poor households in metro Manila. As a key step to ensuring widespread access to clean water for poor families in other areas of the Philippines, the OBA facility will use the pilot as a model to scale-up access to more households.
 
Clean Water for a Healthy World is the theme for World Water Day, held on March 22, 2010. The aim is to raise awareness about the importance of water quality for people's health.  According to the World Bank (which has prioritized water in its development strategy):
  • Over 900 million people do not have access to fresh water and have to see access on a daily basis;
  • About  2.5 billion people, in urban and rural areas globally, run the risk of chronic disease as a direct result of lack of access to safe sanitation; and
  • Each year 1.8 million people die from water-related causes including sickness, floods and famine.