The African Cities Water Adaptation Fund

The African Cities Water Adaptation Fund (ACWA Fund) aims to leverage $5 billion by 2032 to implement urban water resilience projects in 100 African cities. The fund employs a blended finance model—combining grants, concessional loans, equity, and debt—to support the full project lifecycle, from risk-based city water plans to the creation of standardized toolkits for scalable solutions. It focuses on an 'investment menu' of low-cost, replicable solutions such as nature-based solutions for flood and wastewater management, rainwater harvesting, and on-site sanitation.

• Sub-Saharan Africa faces a significant investment gap in water infrastructure, with a $66 billion backlog in water and sanitation infrastructure and a requirement for an additional $9-14 billion annually to secure water sources. Historically, the region has received less than 1% of the $100 billion in private investment directed toward water infrastructure since 1990.
• The ACWA Fund has a target to leverage $5 billion in funding and financing to implement strategic urban water resilience projects in 100 African cities by the year 2032.
• The fund operates through three resource streams to move projects from planning to investment: grants for analytical support to create city-region scale water resilience action plans, repayable grants for project preparation, and direct investment (equity or subordinated debt) for innovative projects.
• To achieve scale, the fund utilizes an 'investment menu' of standardized, low-cost, and replicable solutions. These include nature-based solutions for flood management, watershed management, and wastewater treatment, as well as on-site sanitation and water treatment solutions and household-level rainwater harvesting.
• The fund is currently implementing risk-based planning and sectoral strategy development in six specific cities: Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa, Kigali, Musanze, Johannesburg, and Gqeberha.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). The African Cities Water Adaptation Fund. https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2022-06/acwa-fund-4-pager.pdf

Chicago

World Resources Institute. The African Cities Water Adaptation Fund. n.d. https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2022-06/acwa-fund-4-pager.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=The African Cities Water Adaptation Fund |url=https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2022-06/acwa-fund-4-pager.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendafrican, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{The African Cities Water Adaptation Fund}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2022-06/acwa-fund-4-pager.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }