Version 1
: Received: 2 July 2024 / Approved: 3 July 2024 / Online: 3 July 2024 (07:22:49 CEST)
How to cite:
Cartwright, A.; Swilling, M.; Cullis, J.; Walsh, K.; Gcanga, A. ‘Some for All, Forever’: Investing in Universal Access to Water Services in a Warming World—the Case of South Africa. Preprints2024, 2024070311. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202407.0311.v1
Cartwright, A.; Swilling, M.; Cullis, J.; Walsh, K.; Gcanga, A. ‘Some for All, Forever’: Investing in Universal Access to Water Services in a Warming World—the Case of South Africa. Preprints 2024, 2024070311. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202407.0311.v1
Cartwright, A.; Swilling, M.; Cullis, J.; Walsh, K.; Gcanga, A. ‘Some for All, Forever’: Investing in Universal Access to Water Services in a Warming World—the Case of South Africa. Preprints2024, 2024070311. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202407.0311.v1
APA Style
Cartwright, A., Swilling, M., Cullis, J., Walsh, K., & Gcanga, A. (2024). ‘Some for All, Forever’: Investing in Universal Access to Water Services in a Warming World—the Case of South Africa. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202407.0311.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Cartwright, A., Kim Walsh and Amanda Gcanga. 2024 "‘Some for All, Forever’: Investing in Universal Access to Water Services in a Warming World—the Case of South Africa" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202407.0311.v1
Abstract
South Africa’s internationally celebrated water legislation placed the responsibility for investing in water services at the door of the government. In recent years South Africa has struggled to invest adequately to keep up with growing demand for these services. The result is a suite of social, economic and environmental risks that are destabilising to the fiscus and the financial sector. This paper explored both operating and capital costs, and applied the ‘Beyond the Gap’ analysis to show that an additional 55% investment (R91 billion annually) is necessary to ensure South Africa meets its water policy goals. The analysis explores the factors that influence the investment amount and shows that a combination of policy choices and exogenous factors such as climate change could render the investment gap anywhere between 30% and 90% of the estimated current allocation to the water sector. The most significant savings are attributed to reducing the extent of “non-revenue water”, an energy transition away from coal, sharing of some water taps between (up to) five houses, reduced water allocations to agriculture, investments in invasive alien plant (IAP) clearing in water catchments above dams, and water demand management, capacity building and more efficient integration of different bulk water schemes. The study revealed important dependencies between capital and operating costs; where operating costs are ignored, the decay of water infrastructure is accelerated. Showing the contingency of investment needs on policy choices, places responsibility for attaining water policy goals and SDG 6 in the hands of a diverse set of actors. Quantifying the investment need also raises the critical question of how to raise the required investment. Recognising the need to balance risks to financiers with the widespread risks to households, companies and government when investment in water services is inadequate, South Africa is exploring a Monetary Architecture approach of inter-balance sheet relationships in an attempt to mobilise investment from new sources.
Keywords
Integrated Water Resource Management; Sustainable Development Goals; gap analysis; financialisation; climate change; monetary architecture; South Africa
Subject
Social Sciences, Other
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
