- South Africa and Bulgaria are experiencing different stages of a similar trajectory marked by ageing infrastructure, water losses and governance failures.
- Pollution, corruption and weak institutional capacity continue to undermine reliable water services and public trust.
- Sustainable solutions require maintenance, accountability, professional management and stronger citizen participation rather than technical fixes alone.
I delivered remarks at Bulgaria's Sofia University "St Kliment Ohridski" as part of its African Union strategic vision, Agenda 2063, "The Africa We Want", and, more specifically, the 2026 theme, "Assuring Sustainable Water Availability and Safe Sanitation Systems to Achieve the Goals of Agenda 2063."
The invitation carried an implicit assumption that water crises belong elsewhere, typically in the Global South and, in my case, South Africa. Yet my reading of the Bulgarian landscape suggested otherwise.
Drawing on South Africa's experience, the question I take up here is straightforward: what might countries like Bulgaria learn from household water service failures in South Africa before those failures harden into crisis?
The comparison reveals something more unsettling: not two distinct problems, but two systems at different stages of the same trajectory. Water crises rarely arrive as sudden shocks. They accumulate quietly through neglect, misaligned incentives and institutional fatigue.
In both countries, the warning signs are no longer subtle. Ageing infrastructure, chronic leaks and correspondingly high non-revenue water, pollution and persistent governance failures are converging into a familiar pattern: systems that technically exist, however, increasingly fail to deliver.
For example, in Bulgaria, total water losses exceed 60%, reaching nearly 80% in regions such as Plovdiv. Across much of the country, network conditions are critical, with small and remote settlements particularly exposed. According to Bulgaria's Ministry of Environment and Water, the problem is not a lack of water resources, but the absence of a functioning, modern and well-managed system. In short, it is a crisis produced by human systems rather than natural scarcity, anthropogenic water scarcity.
In South Africa, non-revenue water levels are near 50% nationally, with some municipalities performing far worse. The country faces systemic infrastructure deterioration, weak maintenance regimes and persistent operational failures across municipal systems.
The comparison is instructive not because the two countries are identical, they are not, but because they are differently positioned along the same risk trajectory.
South Africa's crisis is visible, uneven and politically charged. Municipal systems in places such as Johannesburg, despite recent investments like the Brixton Reservoir and Water Tower, or Gqeberha, oscillate between partial functionality and outright breakdown. Water is often physically present in dams and reservoirs, yet fails to reach households reliably.
Bulgaria's crisis, by contrast, is quieter but structurally similar. In cities such as Pernik, which experienced severe shortages in recent years, and even parts of Sofia, the country's capital, the issue is not absolute scarcity but systemic inefficiency: leaking networks, weak investment cycles and institutional fragmentation.
The real problem in both contexts is not water scarcity per se. It is a governance failure.
The shared pathology: Water systems that leak value
Every litre lost is revenue foregone, infrastructure underfunded and public trust eroded. Yet focusing on leaks alone misses the deeper issue: these systems are not simply inefficient; they are misgoverned.
In South Africa, the crisis is entangled with political decentralisation without corresponding administrative capacity. Municipalities carry constitutional responsibility for water delivery, yet many lack technical expertise, stable leadership and financial discipline.
The situation is so acute that the South African Human Rights Commission has described some municipalities in Gauteng as "uncaring". Auditor General reports and Department of Water and Sanitation assessment reports have repeatedly warned of collapsing institutional capacity at the local government level.
In Bulgaria, the challenge lies in fragmentation and slow reform. Utilities operate within a complex regulatory environment shaped by post socialist transition and European Union compliance frameworks, yet investment lags and accountability remains diffuse. Different histories, same outcome: systems that fail to convert infrastructure into reliable service.
Pollution and the politics of neglect
Water quality is the second fault line. In South Africa, failing wastewater treatment plants continue to discharge untreated or partially treated effluent into rivers, turning infrastructure into a source of contamination rather than protection.
In Bulgaria, industrial pollution and agricultural runoff continue to strain water bodies despite legislative and regulatory frameworks. In both cases, pollution persists not because solutions are unknown, but because enforcement is weak. Regulation exists on paper; it fails in practice.
This is where the political economy becomes unavoidable. Pollution is rarely accidental; it is tolerated. It reflects choices about whose environments are protected and whose are expendable.
Corruption: the silent multiplier
Neither country can discuss water governance honestly without confronting corruption. In South Africa, corruption and financial mismanagement through procurement irregularities, politically connected contractors, and dysfunctional infrastructure projects have hollowed out state capacity.
Corruption is often framed as an "African" problem, yet in Bulgaria, concerns around public procurement and infrastructure investment similarly undermine efficiency and public trust. In 2024, the European Public Prosecutor's Office identified fraud in a €2.6 million EU-funded water infrastructure project in a Bulgarian municipality.
Corruption does not merely waste money. It actively produces crisis by distorting incentives: projects are selected not for impact, but for rent extraction, while maintenance, unprofitable and politically invisible, is neglected.
So what would it take to avert collapse?
The instinct in both countries is to reach for technical fixes, including replacing pipes and pumps, upgrading treatment plants, and installing smart meters. These interventions matter, but they do not address the underlying problem. The crisis is institutional, and the response must be as well.
The first step is to shift decisively from infrastructure expansion to system maintenance. Both South Africa and Bulgaria have prioritised new infrastructure over maintaining what already exists, largely because new projects are more politically visible. Yet, in some instances, these are economically irrational. Without sustained investment in maintenance, systems deteriorate faster than they can be expanded.
A maintenance-first approach requires ring-fenced funding, transparent infrastructure audits and fiscal incentives that reward upkeep rather than ribbon-cutting. There is clear scope here for cooperation through shared maintenance benchmarking systems and joint technical exchanges on asset management, drawing on EU regulatory experience and South Africa's large-scale municipal systems.
Closely linked to this is the need to treat non-revenue water not as a technical inefficiency, but as a governance failure. High levels of water loss reflect weak oversight, poor operational discipline and limited accountability. Reducing these losses requires enforceable performance targets, independent monitoring and meaningful consequences for underperformance.
In South Africa, this implies stronger oversight of municipalities. In Bulgaria, it requires consolidation and clearer regulatory authority. A practical area for cooperation lies in developing joint diagnostic tools and performance frameworks for water losses, allowing both countries to compare, standardise and enforce accountability more effectively.
Equally critical is the professionalisation of water utilities. In both contexts, leadership instability and politicised appointments undermine long-term planning and operational effectiveness. Utilities cannot function as extensions of patronage networks. They require technical competence, stable tenure and institutional insulation from political churn.
The broader risk is reputational: states increasingly become associated with incompetence. Here, cooperation could take the form of joint training programmes, professional exchanges and leadership accreditation frameworks that build a shared standard of technical governance across contexts.
Enforcement emerges as a central fault line, particularly in relation to pollution. Both countries possess regulatory frameworks that are, on paper, adequate. The problem lies in selective or inconsistent enforcement. Moving towards rule-based systems, where penalties are automatic, data is publicly accessible, and regulators operate independently, would fundamentally shift incentives.
There is an opportunity for cooperation through regulatory alignment and knowledge sharing on enforcement mechanisms, particularly drawing on Bulgaria's compliance models and adapting them to more decentralised governance contexts such as South Africa.
Water pricing must also be approached with greater nuance. South Africa's commitment to free basic water recognises water as a social good, but implementation weaknesses undermine its impact. Bulgaria's move towards cost-reflective tariffs aligns with European frameworks, yet raises affordability concerns.
A balanced approach would protect a basic allocation for essential use while pricing higher consumption progressively and ensuring billing systems function effectively. Cooperation here could focus on designing hybrid tariff models that balance equity and sustainability, combining South Africa's social policy orientation with Bulgaria's cost recovery frameworks.
Finally, both countries must confront a deeper democratic deficit in water governance. Communities experience system failure daily, yet often lack meaningful avenues to demand accountability. Strengthening citizen reporting mechanisms, enabling participatory budgeting and expanding legal pathways for enforcement are essential to making governance responsive.
A shared area of cooperation lies in developing participatory governance models and digital reporting platforms that empower citizens while improving state responsiveness and transparency.
Water is life; sanitation is dignity
As I concluded my remarks at Sofia University, what stayed with me was not the distance between contexts, but the uncomfortable proximity of their trajectories.
The risk in both South Africa and Bulgaria is not that water will disappear tomorrow. It is that institutional decay will continue, quietly, until dysfunction becomes normalised.
As I prepare to head back to Africa, that comparison lingers. The real game is not hydrological; it is institutional. South Africa's crisis is more advanced, more unequal and more politically volatile. Bulgaria is quieter and more latent, embedded in inefficiencies that can still be corrected. Yet the direction of travel is uncomfortably similar.
The lesson, then, is not one of difference, but of warning. Water crises are rarely natural disasters. More often, they are governance failures made visible through dry taps, leaking pipes, polluted rivers and eroding public trust.
The question is whether that warning will be taken seriously. Because unless senior government officials prioritise maintenance over spectacle, competence over patronage and accountability over convenience, both countries will continue managing decline rather than preventing collapse.
Get your news on the go. Click here to follow the Conviction WhatsApp channel.
