Setting up a Global Network to Support the Scaling of Water Reuse and Reduce Reuse Costs
The World Bank recently launched the report, Scaling Water Reuse: A Tipping Point for Municipal and Industrial Reuse in July of 2025. The report makes the case for the value of water reuse in a context of increasing water scarcity, insecurity and pollution. The report identifies the need for reducing reuse costs through a combination of scaling and innovation, within a context of ambitious policy goals, drawing on the experience of the renewable energy sector.
The idea of setting up a global network to support a global reuse ambition has been discussed at the World Water Forum (Bali, 2024), International Water Association Reuse Conference (Cape Town, March 2025) and Global Water Summit (Paris, May 2025) and is planned to be in the agenda of the UN Water Conference planned for December 2026 cohosted by UAE and Senegal. For this Capstone, the team was tasked to answer to following two key research questions:
- What are the essential ingredients for setting up and managing an effective network whose purpose is to support the scaling of water reuse globally, and how could/should this network be established?
- What drives reuse costs, why do costs have such a wide dispersion both within and across countries, and what can be done to bring these costs down?