Water Sector Capital Investment Plan 2016 – 2025.

The Water Sector Capital Investment Plan is an integral part of the National Water Strategy 2016-2025. It is a sectoral document to be implemented in a 10 year-period (2016 – 2025) at national level and aims at securing water supply, developing new water resources that will enhance the water allowances per capita, providing access to improved water supply, and expanding the wastewater services and coverage all over the Kingdom. The main objectives of the Water Sector Capital Investment Plan 2016 – 2025, is (i) to improve the inadequate distribution system; (ii) to reduce the leakage through replacement of inferior pipes and adequate maintenance of pipes; (iii) to improve the distribution management equipment and technical capacity for equitable supply; (iv) to expand the coverage of the wastewater services; (v) to provide a comprehensive framework for sustainable development and management of the Nation’s water resources; and (vi) to highlight the main areas that the investment will be directed, in which an effective legal and institutional framework for its implementation will be put in place. This Capital Investment Plan explains the infrastructure investments strategically necessary to accommodate the projected development, taking into consideration sustainability of services and priorities as set within the local context, in addition to socio-economic factors, and with timelines that are coordinated with population projections and development needs. The approach to identifying the infrastructure needs are based on two main streams of information related to the (i) expansion of services to cover upcoming forecasted demand; and (ii) rehabilitation and/or replacement of infrastructure that is already in place and that is in need of improvement, as well as reducing Non-Revenue Water. Furthermore, MWI carried out a preliminary cost-benefit analysis for each project to assess its feasibility and support prioritizing implementation plans and accessing funds. The projects included in the Plan have been listed under either of two main categories, which are Water Projects (divided in Water Resources, Bulk Supplies and Retail and Distribution, in turn separated in Irrigation Water and Domestic, Commercial and Tourism), and Wastewater Projects (Rehabilitation and Upgrade of Existing Systems, Expansion of Services to Unsewered Areas, Wastewater Treatment Plants. Another category was added to accommodate Energy Projects, having been identified energy as one of the major factors that impact water and sanitation services.
In order to make agriculture more productive and sustainable, part of the projects outlined in the Plan aims at providing permanent irrigation water sources for irrigated agriculture. They also take in account the environmental aspects of water production and utilization in order to achieve a sustainable balance between extraction and recharge.
Disadvantaged and poor communities are among the goals that this policy addresses.
To increase the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, it is proposed in some projects the construction of dams to store permanent water runoff and reduce the negative effects of droughts, as well as to ward off the risk of flooding.
As for the Governance, the Plan is mainly focused on the Monitoring and Evaluation System for the water sector. This sort of iterative process can achieve more efficient investment over time. It also requires that the data collected on each of the indicators be reliable, consistently reported, routinely aggregated, and easily accessible as public information. The Government must establish and strengthen mechanisms for ensuring data quality, and the upkeep and accessibility of data.