Management Contracts in Water and Sanitation in Gaza – World Bank note

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Viewpoint

Note No. 177

April 1999

Management Contracts in Water and Sanitation – Gaza's Experience

Jamal Saghir, Elisabeth Sherwood, and Andrew Macoun

The World Bank – Finance, Private Sector, and Infrastructure Network

In 1995, as the interim agreements between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the government of Israel were being finalized and signed, water and sanitation services in the Gaza Strip were in crisis. Gaza has an extremely dense population of about 2,500 people per square kilometer (the population is around 900,000). The thin strip of land's primary source of water, a shallow aquifer, was being mined at more than twice its estimated annual recharge rate, resulting in an increasing deterioration in quality.

Responsibility for water services was fragmented among four municipal water departments, twelve village councils, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. There was no accurate accounting of water production or consumption, though estimates put daily per capita consumption at less than 70 liters, well below levels in countries with similar incomes. About half of the water supplied was unaccounted for – the result of system losses, illegal connections, and nonfunctioning meters.

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