U.S. Statement on Sanitation

Thank you Mr. Chairman,

I’m still getting my thoughts together but wanted to be responsive to the intervention we’ve just heard to identify concrete actions for mobilizing resources for sanitation and put forward four policy options – two from our domestic experience and two from our international experience. The domestic examples first.

In 1987, the United States passed the Clean Water Act. In the act, we adopted – and this is the first policy option – as national policy to provide financial assistance to construct publicly owned waste treatment works. The next step we took, and this is the second policy option, is we provided seed money to establish innovative financing mechanisms such as pooled or revolving funds to provide low-interest loans to municipalities for water and sanitation infrastructure projects. You heard some about these funds yesterday. They can provide resources for a wide range of interventions including ecosystem projects relating to watershed protection.

From our international experience, I want to highlight two policy options. The first, is to use partial loan guarantees to mobilize domestic capital for water and sanitation infrastructure. We hope to have some time to talk more about this later today. The other option, which I would like to spend a little more time on now, is to establish national or regional project development facilities to assist in preparing infrastructure projects for investment and creating opportunities for private sector development. There is no lack of capital for investment-worthy projects. What there is - is a lack of investment-worthy projects. Project development facilities can work with municipalities to develop projects that will generate interest from investors. There are several models. The one I want to highlight here is the IFC-managed Balkans Infrastructure Development Facility. The Facility is one approach we think is innovative in that it combines a revolving fund with project development. Funds are loaned out to pay for the project development, capacity building process and repaid – over time – once the project is financed. Proceeds go back into the fund to support other projects. These are the types of processes that once in place can provide sustainable support in the sanitation sector.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time and will leave a list of these options along with relevant case studies in the back. Thank you.