In Africa, the situation is expected to be extremely tense, involving a variety of risks such as groundwater depletion, brakes on growth in certain sectors and the destruction of ecosystems. In 2003, the G8 summit in Evian adopted a global action plan for water.1 An international consensus on official development assistance has also taken shape within the framework of various multi-stakeholder meetings on effective aid hosted by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in Paris in 2005, Accra in 2008 and Busan in 2011.2 This consensus enshrines four principles of particular relevance to the water sector: ownership of development priorities by the beneficiary countries; a focus on results; development partnerships open to all; and transparency and mutual accountability. Forty per cent of this assistance was allocated to the poorest countries, with close to one-third of the resources going to Africa.