The subject of this case study is the World Bank’s failure to properly assess risks to children associated with the IDA-funded Second National Water Development Project (SNWDP) in Malawi. The study considers impacts on children—both likely to occur and already occurring—as a result of the installation of prepaid water meters. The case study was prepared in partnership with Citizens for Justice, a civil society organization based in Lilongwe, Malawi.
A controversial pilot program under SNWDP involves installing prepaid water meters (PPMs) in people’s homes in Mzuzu, Malawi. The purpose of the project is to increase access to a sustainable water supply for the city’s residents, but the project poses many risks for people that already struggle to pay for water, including children in communities that are especially vulnerable to changes in water delivery services. Both Bank and borrower have largely ignored these risks, which could seriously undermine the project and serve to further entrench the cycle of poverty in Malawi.
Although the World Bank clearly considered the benefits to water service providers associated with PPMs, it has failed to consider the potential impacts on communities—and especially children—when payment for water is charged up front rather than provided on credit. A child’s growing body and developing mind can be directly affected when access to water is compromised. Girls in particular can also be indirectly affected when they are forced to miss school to collect water or face sexual violence in the process of collecting water for themselves and their families. Proper due diligence and meaningful consultations that could have uncovered these risks and informed a proper mitigation plan were not carried out in this case. As a result, the project design suffered and there has been little to no ownership of the project by the communities. Rather, many affected people have actively fought the implementation and roll out of the project, including by filing a complaint with the World Bank Inspection Panel.
Despite the World Bank’s own research on the importance of avoiding deprivations in childhood to end extreme poverty, its current safeguard policies do not include specific protections for children to prevent harm from World Bank projects. The Bank should therefore update its policies to require, at a minimum, assessments of a project’s potential unique direct and indirect impacts on children. The ongoing safeguards review is an important opportunity to incorporate such measures into mandatory policies in order to ensure that future Bank projects avoid mistakes like those made by the Malawi water project, and instead contribute to truly sustainable poverty reduction.
Failing to Assess Risks to Children: A Case Study on the Second National Water Development Project in Malawi, funded in part by the International Development Association