Non-Revenue Water Costs African Utilities $800 Million

Water utilities are struggling to hold onto their water supply—and their revenue—in Africa. 

"African water companies lose as much as $800 million a year, or about 35 percent of total production, because of leaks, fraud and unpaid bills," Bloomberg recently reported, citing the African Water Association, a group that gathers information from 100 water utilities in 40 countries on the continent.

In some African countries, half of the produced water supply becomes non-revenue water, according to experts cited in the report. 

Utilities in Africa need to confront the non-revenue water problem by "using more meters and improving reading of the existing ones to reduce costs," Sylvain Usher, the secretary-general of the African Water Association, told Bloomberg. 

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) launched a program last year aimed at reducing non-revenue water in Africa. Implemented with support from the African Water Association, USAID said the effort represents "the first continent-wide attempt to tackle this devastating problem," according to USAID. 

The program is focused on "determining the real extent and causes of losses at the utility level, designing and carrying out action programs to reverse the losses, and strengthening African expertise to solve these problems now and in the future," the agency said. 

The non-revenue water problem in Africa is severe because utilities lack the funding to upgrade their infrastructure, USAID said. 

"Most utilities in Africa live on the edge of a financial precipice. They cannot cover their regular operating costs. They do not provide full services to their customers, and they cannot repair or expand their networks," the agency said. 

A major function of the Africa Water Association is to lobby the United Nations to ensure Africa's water issues are a priority. The group "advocates for taking into account access to water and sanitation as a post-2015 priority issue. This will surely be an indicator that we really want sustainable human development beyond declarations of good intention," the organization said. 

It's not just Africa. Non-revenue water is a problem all over the world.

Asia needs $59 billion in water supply investments to comprehensively confront the issue, according to the Asian Development Bank. 

The World Bank says the price tag on non-revenue water globally is close to $14 billion each year, Water Online previously reported.