Dr. Nicholas Igwe, the Global Head and National Coordinator of the Organised Private Sector in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (OPS-WASH), has issued a warning that Nigeria is failing to capitalize on an estimated $26 billion sanitation market. He attributed this to the lack of institutional frameworks that can attract and sustain private sector investment.
Sanitation Economy Projected at $26 Billion
Igwe, who also serves as a member of the Presidential Steering Committee on Sanitation, made these remarks during a press briefing in Abuja on Tuesday. The briefing focused on unlocking private sector investment for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) infrastructure across Africa. He revealed that Nigeria's sanitation economy is expected to represent a $26 billion market opportunity by 2030. This opportunity spans various areas, including water reuse facilities, urban sanitation networks, on-site treatment systems, commercial water supply operations, and related technology supply chains.
Barriers to Investment
According to Igwe, the country's struggle to attract substantial private investment in the sector is not due to a lack of interest from investors. Instead, existing barriers make investment unattractive. He stated, "Almost none of that value is currently captured by private investment. This is not evidence that the private sector does not want to invest in Nigerian WASH. It is evidence that the barriers to investment are so substantial and so poorly addressed by existing institutions that rational private actors consistently find better opportunities elsewhere."
Weak Institutional Arrangements
Igwe argued that the challenges facing the water, sanitation, and hygiene sector primarily stem from weak institutional arrangements rather than a shortage of funding. He noted that despite technological advances and infrastructure development globally, over 600 million people in Africa still lack access to safe and reliable water sources. Nearly twice that number are without basic sanitation services.
"The scale of this failure is not the result of technological limitation. It is not the result of insufficient understanding. It is not even, primarily, the result of insufficient money. It is the result of a structural failure — a failure to build the institutional architecture that would allow capital, technology and organisational capacity to flow toward the people and communities who need it," he said.
Funding Gap and SDG 6
The OPS-WASH coordinator explained that achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, which aims for universal access to safe water and sanitation by 2030, would require an estimated $114 billion in annual global investment. However, Official Development Assistance (ODA) currently accounts for only a fraction of that amount. This makes it unrealistic to rely solely on governments and development partners to close the funding gap.
"The arithmetic is unforgiving. Even if every donor government doubled its commitment to WASH tomorrow, the gap would remain unbridgeable through public finance alone. The only way to close it is to make WASH a functioning commercial market, one in which private capital participates not out of charity, but because the risk-adjusted returns are credible, the regulatory environment is predictable, the contracts are enforceable and the institutional framework provides the certainty that commercial investment requires," he added.
Proposed Solution: Private Sector Engagement Platform
To address the challenge, Igwe advocated for the establishment of a Private Sector Engagement Platform (PSEP) under a proposed WASH Finance Foundation. This platform would serve as a bridge between government, investors, and technical experts. He described it as an institutional mechanism designed to convert political commitments, financial resources, and technical expertise into a functioning market capable of attracting long-term private investment.
Igwe stressed that unless African countries, including Nigeria, build stronger institutional frameworks and create a more predictable investment environment, efforts to achieve universal access to water and sanitation may remain out of reach. "The gap is not a funding problem. It is an architecture problem. What is missing is not money; it is the institutional framework that makes investment possible," he concluded.
