Au Kenya, une approche innovante faisant appel à la fois à des subventions basées sur les résultats et à des financements aux conditions du marché aide les prestataires communautaires de services d’approvisionnement en eau à obtenir des crédits pour financer des infrastructures rurales.

K-Rep Bank, une banque commerciale locale spécialisée dans le microfinancement, est responsable de la mise en oeuvre du projet avec l’aide du Programme pour l’eau et l’assainissement, du Partenariat mondial pour l’aide basée sur les résultats et de la Facilité de l’Union européenne pour l’eau.

Community run small-scale water systems play a critical role in supplying consumers in the peri-urban and rural areas of Kenya. The importance of these providers has been recognized in recent reforms of the sector, which provide for a legal and regulatory framework for community-based organizations to engage in water service provision outside major towns and cities.

In 2006, the Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA) approved an innovative pilot project for $1.15 million to increase access and improve efficiency in water services for the poor in rural and peri-urban areas of central Kenya through investments in selected community subprojects. By February 2013, an additional 190,000 people had obtained access to improved piped-water supply in low-income communities in rural and peri-urban areas of Kenya as a result of the project. It also enabled access to commercial loans and mobilized community investment.

This knowledge note looks at a series of interventions undertaken by the Government of Kenya with support from the World Bank and other development partners, to improve access to commercial finance in the water and sanitation sector. It describes recent sector reforms and innovative financing initiatives and draw lessons from interventions supporting utility and community water service providers (WSPs) in accessing finance for infrastructure investment.

The Water Services Trust Fund of Kenya (WSTF) is administering an output-based aid (OBA) program that provides financial incentives to water service providers to invest in rehabilitation and expansion of water and sanitation infrastructure. The objective of the program is to improve the operating efficiency and financial performance of water service providers, and to extend access to unserved consumers. The program is supported by GPOBA and the World Bank, with funds from the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida).