Webinar: There’s a Hole in my Bucket! Utility financial liquidity and COVID-19

Water and sanitation services are a crucial cornerstone in efforts to manage the pandemic, e.g. the role of handwashing in killing the virus. Ironically, however, some measures taken to ensure water and sanitation services are widely available are putting a financial burden on water utilities that may compromise their ability to deliver essential public services throughout the pandemic and beyond.

The growing liquidity crisis of public utilities under COVID-19 is caused by a twofold burden of (1) increasing costs and (2) decreasing revenues. Having no or limited cash reserves, many utilities already struggle to maintain a service that provides safely managed water and sanitation for all. The economic downturn in low- to middle-income countries, which is leading to increasingly high public debt levels, means that scarce public resources for water supply and sanitation may decline even further.

How can utilities continue to provide everyone with lifesaving water and sanitation services, without a sustainable cash flow? How big is the shortfall, and who is paying for it?

As part of GWOPA’s webinar series, this session aims to raise awareness and share experiences on financial liquidity risks for water operators in light of the global coronavirus pandemic. It will bring together experts in the water service provision field with water/wastewater utilities from different regions to hear about their challenges, potential solutions, and outlooks on financial solvency. In addition, World Bank colleagues will speak on recent findings around utility solvency and introduce their novel Covid19 Financial Impact Assessment Tool for Water and Sanitation Providers.

Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_l8YnGUk7SxSsN8wXBdf__w