water and energy – Rural Water Supply Network

Blog by Peter Wanyangi & Ida Githu (Dr.), Managing Partner, EED Advisory.

Africa Water Policy Moment: Converging Programmes, Fragmented Delivery

Africa is experiencing one of its most significant water policy moments in decades. In February 2026, African leaders adopted the Africa Union’s (AU) Water Vision 2063 and Policy, alongside the declaration of 2026 as the Year of Water and Sanitation. This vision recognizes water and sanitation not only as a social service, but also as catalysts for economic growth, food security, and climate resilience, calling on African governments to “position water as a strategic asset for industrialisation, agriculture and energy, and an indispensable enabler of primary national development objectives.”

Within weeks of the AU declaration, the World Bank Group launched the Water Forward Initiative at its Spring Meetings in April 2026. The initiative aims to ‘make water systems investable, scalable, and capable of supporting prosperity at scale’. As World Bank Group President Ajay Banga put it, “Water is foundational to how economies function. When water systems work, farmers produce, businesses operate, and cities attract investment.”

Central to this ‘water policy moment’ is a recognition of the economic value of water and the dependence of other sectors on this critical resource. Indeed, water is said to underpin health, food systems, energy, and an estimated 1.7 billion jobs worldwide.

The question then becomes: how do we ensure that these high-level declarations are delivered to local communities, and particularly rural African communities that remain largely underserved?

This question is especially pertinent given other major development programmes advancing in parallel with the water initiatives across the continent, which are relevant to delivering the economic potential of water but are not necessarily presented as such. For instance, there is the Mission 300 initiative, developed by the World Bank and the African Development Bank, which targets electricity access for 300 million Africans by 2030. There is also the agriculture-focused programme, AgriConnect, also developed by the World Bank and aimed at improving smallholder productivity, food systems, and rural incomes. The physical infrastructure component of AgriConnect recognizes that ‘irrigation, transportation corridors such as roads and railways, and electricity form the backbone of a strong agriculture value chain’.

While the World Bank/AfDB programmes, along with the African Union’s policy framework, were not designed as a single integrated framework, their implementation realities converge at the community level. Reliable water access underpins irrigation and agricultural productivity; energy is needed to pump, treat, and distribute that water; and water and energy systems both become more viable when anchored in productive agricultural demand. As a result, rural development, and specifically economic outcomes in water, energy, and agriculture, are increasingly interdependent, a practical convergence that reflects the logic of the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems nexus.

A useful nexus level implementation lever: PUE & MUS

A conversation at this year’s Energy Access Investment Forum pointed to the convergence of two common yet often unlinked approaches as a low-hanging starting point: Productive Use of Energy (PUE) and Multiple-Use Water Services (MUS). PUE is an increasingly popular approach within the energy sector that refers to the use of energy to create value, be it in the form of productivity or income, employment, or reduced hardship. PUE largely entails using decentralized energy systems (for example, mini-grids and solar home systems) to support income-generating activities. This includes irrigation, agro-processing, cold storage, and small enterprise development. Across many African rural contexts, however, mini-grids, a more economical electrification option compared to extension of the main grid, face viability challenges due to limited demand concentrated only in household consumption. Without productive demand, revenue streams remain insufficient for sustainability.