Exclusion of private sector investment blamed for Africa's water and sanitation crisis

Nicholas Igwe, a member of the Presidential Steering Committee on Sanitation and National Coordinator of the Organised Private Sector in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, stated that the persistent water and sanitation crisis in Nigeria and across Africa is due to the exclusion of private investors. Speaking in Abuja, Igwe highlighted that the sector's heavy reliance on donor agencies and civil society organizations stems from governments' failure to establish institutional frameworks that attract private capital. He argued that the core issue is not a lack of funding or technology, but rather the absence of structures to encourage long-term private investment. Igwe noted that despite available capital, technology, engineering expertise, and political commitments, the sector lacks the necessary institutional arrangements to make investments viable. He compared this to the telecommunications, energy, and housing sectors, where liberalization and regulatory reforms successfully attracted private capital. Igwe identified six major barriers to private investment in the WASH sector: revenue uncertainty, poor risk allocation, long investment recovery periods, regulatory weakness, political interference, inadequate project preparation, and the absence of standardized institutional frameworks. He warned that political interference in regulation undermines investor confidence and criticized the overreliance on donor agencies, stating that government budget allocations alone cannot bridge