Water utilities as debt emitters: the commercialization of development funding and services provision in Kenya’s water sector

Abstract

The encouragement of commercial financing approaches in international development has also targeted basic services sectors. In Kenya, where half of the population still lacks access to regulated water and even more to regulated sanitation services, several actors have worked to commercialise the water sector's development funding to mobilise private resources for rehabilitation and development of infrastructure and services provision. Water utilities, in other words, have been made into candidates to occupy a debt emitter position in the sector. Notwithstanding continuing non-success of commercial borrowing without public de-risking, such positioning as the sector's debt emitters has consolidated water utilities' ongoing commercialisation, the adoption of associated practices, and the endorsement of full cost recovery. This trend risks omitting to pursue 'non-bankable' projects and deepening uneven services provision in the country; positioning other organisations as the sector's debt emitters may allow for more equitable development of, and access to, water and sanitation services.