Water Operator Partnerships: Worldwide
The Global WOPs Alliance Secretariat and IWA are working together in the following main regions: Africa, Asia, The Arab Region, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America and Oceania.
A number of regional banks and implementing agencies, such as ADB, USAID, IDB, AfDB and others are supporting WOPs and WOPs programmes financially and technically as illustrated in the following sections.
- The role of facilitating partners in the Global WOPs Alliance
- The role of current financial and substantive partners in the Global WOPs Alliance
- The enabling stakeholder environment
- Inter-Regional WOPs
- Regional WOPs
- Related Articles
- Links
The role of facilitating partners in the Global WOPs Alliance
International WOPs related activities
Contact person: Mr Faraj El-Awar
Phone: +254 713 909 989
E-mail: faraj.el-awar@unhabitat.org
Web: www.unhabitat.org
A fundamental part of IWA’s mission is to provide opportunities for members to learn from each other across the different subject areas and geographies.
IWA has strengthened its brokering and supporting efforts by establishing a Water Operators Partnerships programme headed by a WOPs Coordinator. Furthermore, regional offices and representations have been set up in Beijing, Singapore, Lima and Nairobi to support IWA activities in general and WOPs activities in particular.
A WOPs strategy and pertinent work plans have been developed.
Contact person: Mr Steen Bjerggaard
Phone: +46 708 262 418
E-mail: steen.bjerggaard@iwahq.org
Web:www.iwahq.org
The role of current financial and substantive partners in the Global WOPs Alliance
In Asia:
ADB, USAID and IWA have established a network called WaterLinks, which is a longterm collaborative partnership that supports and promotes WOPS between water and wastewater operators in Asia.
ADB is a broad-based development institution for the Asia and Pacific region, committed to reduce poverty through lending and non-lending activities to support propoor sustainable economic growth, good governance and inclusive social development.
Under a Regional Technical Assistance program funded by the Japan Special Fund, ADB is implementing the WOPs Program in Asia which includes the establishment of water utilities networks in South Asia (SAWUN),, Central Asia (CASCWUA) and support the existing network in Southeast Asia (SEAWUN).
See more at www.adb.org/water
USAID is the United States Government agency responsible for providing U.S. economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide. Through its Regional Development Mission in Asia (RDMA), USAID works throughout Asia to sustain and replicate environmental improvements through regional cooperation. Environmental Cooperation-Asia
(ECO-Asia), an RDMA program, promotes improved access to clean water and sanitation
in support of the U.S. Government’s Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
See more at www.usaid.gov
IWA is a non-profit, self-governing global network of water professionals, spanning the continuum between research and practice and covering all phases of the water cycle with over 10,000 members across 120 countries globally. Through IWA, members collaborate to lead the development and implementation of innovative and effective approaches to water management.
See more at: www.iwahq.org
In Latin America and the Caribbean:
IDB and UN-HABITAT has established a WOP-LAC programme with support from IWA and the Inter-American Sanitary and Environmental Engineering Association (AIDIS).
IDB is a regional development bank with its headquarters in Washington D.C. The bank supports the process of economic and social development in Latin America and the Caribbean and is the main source of multilateral financing in the region. The IDB Group provides solutions to development challenges by partnering with governments, companies and civil society organizations, thus reaching its clients ranging from central governments to city authorities and businesses
AIDIS is a non-profitable scientific civil society with its headquarters located in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It holds the main student and professional institutions of the Americas that are dedicated to environmental, sanitary and health preservation. The association reaches 32 countries in the American continent and the Caribbean. It currently has 10 thousand associates in its 24 national sections. The coordination of these activities takes place through 20 technical divisions.
The enabling stakeholder environment
Many parties in the international context in which WOPs are evolving have a role to play in the promotion of this new approach: policy makers, brokering parties, funding parties, water operators and civil society. All are part of the enabling stakeholders’ network for WOPs:
Inter-Regional WOPs
Inter-regional WOPs involve partners from different regions of the world, including North-South and South-South partnerships.
Inter-Regional WOPs are often comprehensive WOPs that last for several years and the scope of the support is broad. The traveling and subsistence expenses together with the task of overcoming social, cultural, and language barriers becomes sustainable only when the scope of the project is broad and the expected outputs are of a certain dimension.
However, with the right type of funding support it shall be possible also to develop inter-regional WOPs in more simple forms. The Global WOPs Alliance is working to provide the framework for such inter-regional WOPs. Two inter-regional WOPs are ongoing between South Africa and Norway.
Regional WOPs
Regional WOPs occur when the water operators in the partnership are from the same region. Regional WOPs benefit from the
cultural, language and geographical proximity of the partners and the associated cost for travel and accommodation may be rather low.
Most partnerships in the past have been regional partnerships. The Global WOPs Alliance Secretariat is financially and substantively supporting regional WOPs, and IWA is working as a WOPs broker and supporting regional and sub-regional structures, associations and water operators. Several regional WOPs Programmes have been established or are under development. In the following, a short presentation is given on ongoing
regional activities.
Africa
The WOP-Africa programme is managed jointly by AfWA (the African Water Association) and ESAR-IWA (the East and Southern African Region-IWA) according to a three year business plan with major support from the Global WOPs Alliance and the Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) of the World Bank. The programme is building on the work of the former Water Utilities Partnership (WUP) in Africa. Utility-to-utility partnerships
are at the core of the WOP activities.
A WOP-Africa secretariat has been established in Johannesburg, hosted by Rand Water. The WOP-Africa secretariat shall work closely together with the GWOPA Secretariat in Nairobi.
USAID has committed approximately1.5 million USD to the functioning of the secretariat and to financing activities within the business plan during 2009 - 2011.UNHABITAT has confirmed its intention to provide support to the secretariat covering the first year of establishment and initial salary related costs.
Wops in Africa
In Africa as a whole, some 60-70% of all water operators have been involved in some kind of partnership under e.g. the earlier WUP programme, the Water Utility Partnership for Capacity Building or by own initiative.
Some 200 utility managers and staff as well as university people participated in these events.
A great number of potential partnerships were identified as a result of these workshops and are seeking funding to be initiated.
An extensive Self-assessment/Benchmarking exercise was carried out before the match making workshops comprising input from134 operators in 35 countries.
A first WOP is under preparation between NWSC in Uganda and Kisumu Water and Sanitation Company (KIWASCO) in Kenya, covering a number of performance improvement plans (PIP). The partnership will gain financial support by UN-HABITAT through AfWA. The broader aim of the WOP-Africa programme is to establish five partnerships per year.
Finally, the Global WOPs Alliance, Cap-Net (UNDP, United Nations Development Programme), and IWA are collaboratively working to produce capacity development material and deliver training courses on Integrated Water Resource Management(IWRM) for water operators. Material on water demand management and Water Safety Planning has been developed for that purpose.
Contact details:
WOP-Africa secretariat:
Contact person: Mr Doulaye Koné, PhD
Phone: +41 44 823 55 53
E-mail: doulaye.kone@eawag.ch
AfWA:
Contact person: Mr Sylvain Usher
Phone: +225 05 42 11 11
E-mail: susher.uade@aviso.ci
ESAR-IWA:
Contact person: Prof Hamanth Kasan
Phone: +27 823 890 424
E-mail: hkasan@randwater.co.za
IWA has established a regional office for Africa, hosted at UN-HABITAT in Nairobi:
Contact person: Ms Sarah M. Tibatemwa
Phone: +256 782 655 272
E-mail: Sarah.Tibatemwa@iwahq.org
Building water operators partnerships for sustainable development in water and sanitation
Asia
USAID, ADB and IWA signed an agreement during the Stockholm World Water Week in 2008 to establish an Asia-wide regional partnership network called WaterLinks.
The WaterLinks partners are coordinating, developing and implementing three principal capacity building activities:
• establishing and facilitating water operator twinning partnerships
• strengthen operator capacity through regional training and toolkits, and
• WOPs knowledge dissemination.
Through WaterLinks, the three development partners collaborate on a common platform that leverages each partner’s comparative advantages in developing and facilitating WOPs in Asia. WaterLinks is operated out of IWA’s East Asia & Pacific office in Singapore, using an annual capacity building work plan comprising workshops and training to pursue long term aims.
IWA Singapore
Contact person: Mr. Ryan Yuen
Office: +65 6316 9935
Mobile: +65 9686 9647
IWA Beijing, China
Contact person: Mr. Tao Li, PhD
Office: +86 10 62849589
Mobile: +86 13810031231
WaterLinks is coordinating its activities with the three sub-regional associations: SEAWUN for South-East Asia, SAWUN for South Asia and CASCWUA for Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
SEAWUN was established in 2002 with support from ADB. Since then, the association has become a strong regional, non-profit, and self-sustaining organization. It helps its members to improve service delivery, attain operational and management efficiency, achieve financial viability and advocate sector reforms for improved policy environment. The association currently has more than 80 members
SAWUN is a new organization of water utilities in South Asia whose vision is to measurably improve its members’ performance in the delivery of water supply and sanitation services. With ADB’s support, the association was established in April 2007 and is committed to becoming a self-sustaining organization that proactively responds to its members’ needs and demonstrates excellence in delivering its programs and practices.
CASCWUA is a new organization of water utilities committed to improving its members’ performance in the delivery of water services. By forming this association, water utilities
from Central Asia and South Caucasus caretaking progressive action to tackle the region’s widespread problems of inadequate drinking water and lack of improved sanitation. The association was established in November2007 with assistance from ADB.
These associations are – apart from supporting the WOPs – running a number of training activities related to Non-Revenue-Water, Water Demand Management, Assets Management, etc. They also perform benchmarking activities.
Wops in Asia
Presently, 17 partnerships are under implementation and four has been concluded. See the table below. Detailed information can be found at the WaterLinks website: www.waterlinks.org. The aim is to establish 10 partnerships per year.
Contact details:
SEAWUN:
Contact person: Mr V K Quyen
Phone: +84 4 6275 2677
E-mail: office@seawun.org
vkquyen@seawun.org
seawun@viettel.vn
Web: www.seawun.org
SAWUN:
Contact person: Mr Michael White (ADB)
E-mail: mewhite@adb.org
Web: www.sawun.org
CASCWUA:
Contact person: Mr Michael White (ADB)
E-mail: mewhite@adb.org
Web: www.cascwua.org
ADB:
Contact person: Mr Michael White (ADB)
E-mail: mewhite@adb.org
Web: www.adb.org
USAID/ECO-Asia:
Contact person: Mr Niels van Dijk
Phone: +66 2 651 8977, ext 113
E-mail: nvandijk@eco-asia.org
Web: http://usaid.eco-asia.org
Arab region
The Arab Countries Water Utilities Association (ACWUA) was established in 2007 with the support of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fürTechnische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (UN ESCWA). The ACWUA Secretariat is hosted in Amman, Jordan since the start of 2009.
Working groups have been created within
ACWUA on:
• Utility Management (O&M)
• Capacity Building and Training
• Benchmarking
• Water Resources Management
• Utility Reform and
• Water & Health.
WOPs in the region
WOPs in the Arab region
A WOPs action plan – including benchmarking and matchmaking – has been agreed between ACWUA, GTZ, USAID/ABRI, IWA, and the Global WOPs Alliance Secretariat. A 5 year business plan is underdevelopment.
IWA, UN-HABITAT and Cap-Net have agreed with the Office Nationale d’Eau Potable du Maroc (ONEP) and its training unit that it will translate existing capacity training materials into French, provide local input and host training in Morocco. UN ESCWA and the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) will support translation into Arabic of the same material and launch a training programme in the
region.
Contact details:
ACWUA secretariat in Amman:
Contact person: Eng. Khaldon Khashman
Phone: +962 6 5161700
E-mail: info@acwua.org
Web: www.acwua.org
Europe
WOPs in the region Three workshops were held by IWA in Europe during 2007-2008 with the aim to:
• Increase awareness of the urgent needs for collaboration between water and sanitation operators regionally and nationally
• Create the understanding of the possibilities and benefits of the IWA programme for brokering and supporting Water Operators Partnerships globally.
• Pave the way for regional and crossregional collaboration facilitated by IWA
• Cascade experiences and results from successful partnerships to other water operators
• Building water operators partnerships for sustainable development in water and sanitation
Contact person: Mr Steen Bjerggaard
Phone: +46 708 262 418
E-mail: steen.bjerggaard@iwahq.org
Wops in Europe
The Global WOPs Alliance Secretariat, in collaboration with UNU, UN-Water Decade Programme on Capacity Development (UNW-DPC) and the Bulgarian Water Association (BWA), was planning to initiate the establishment process of a South-East European WOPs platform, WOP-SEE, during a training workshop on NRW that will be held in Sofia, Bulgaria, November 2009.
Contact person: Mr Faraj El-Awar
Phone: +254 713 909 989
E-mail: faraj.el-awar@unhabitat.org
Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)
A collaboration network between water and sanitation operators in Latin America and the Caribbean, called WOP-LAC, has been established with the support of IDB, UN-HABITAT, AIDIS (the Inter-American Association of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering) and IWA. The mission of the network is to promote and implement collaboration arrangements on at not-forprofit basis between water and sanitation operators in the region. The objective is to improve the management and operational capacity of the operators and accelerate their contribution to fulfilling the Millennium Development goals and to achieve universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation.
The steering committee for the WOP-LAC region is composed by eight operators, IDB,
UN-HABITAT, AIDIS and IWA. IDB took the main operational lead in the WOP-LAC programme and in late 2008 it was agreed that IWA should provide support to IDB’s process of water operator engagement.
Subsequently, IWA has assisted IDB and AIDIS in the development of an appropriate strategy and workplan for the WOP-LAC
programme.
Today, the WOP-LAC secretariat, situated in Washington D.C., is run jointly by IDB, UN-HABITAT and IWA. An IWA office was set up in Lima to support
IWA’s Water Safety Plan (WSP) efforts in Latin America as well as the WOP-LAC programme:
Contact person: Maria del Carmen Portillo
Phone: +51 1 9855 5812
E-mail: maria.portillo@iwahq.org
WOPs Latin America
The following WOPs are ongoing in the LAC Region, all with a cost of less than USD
12,000.
More information can be found at www.iadb.org. The aim of the WOP-LAC programme is to establish 10 partnerships per year.
A special website for the WOP-LAC region has been created. The website shall facilitate the search for information on WOPs in the region. Further, three workshops on Energy efficiency and three on Non-Revenue-Water were carried out during 2009.
A WOPs match-making workshop was held in Medellin, Colombia in June 2009, during the annual Training Workshop of the Water and Sanitation division of the Inter-American Development Bank. The workshop was organized jointly by IDB, UN-Habitat and IWA and included some 40 managers from water operators in the region and some 60 employees of the bank. A key objective of the workshop was for the operators present to share and exchange their experiences relating to critical aspects of the provision of water and sanitation services. In addition, exercises were carried out to connect suitable mentoring and recipient partners to each other through match-making initiatives.
Beforehand, a questionnaire was distributed among the operators to identify the areas in which a company had strengths and the areas in which a company needed to improve or for which it would like to receive training. The questionnaire, which is also available on-line at IWA’s web page: www.iwahq.org, constitutes an important tool in enabling the identification of potential twinning arrangements among operators. 20 questionnaires were received, filled out with valuable information
As a result of the WOPs workshop some 30 possible partnerships were identified as well as a number of joint training opportunities. Subsequently, a great number of WOPs will be established over the next year in the LAC region.
A sub-regional WOPs network for the Caribbean region was discussed at a conference in May 2009 in Georgetown, Guyana, organised by the Global WOPs Alliance. The details on its form and governance are under discussion but it’s expected that it will remain part of the WOPLAC
network The Georgetown workshop will be followed-up in another workshop in St Tomas, US Virgin Islands, in October 2009. The Medellin
workshop will be followed-up by further events in 2010
IWA is working with the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO), the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United States Environment Protection Agency (USEPA), AIDIS and the United States Department of State to scale up training in Water Safety Planning (WSP) in the Region. To support this effort the above mentioned organisations established a Network of regional experts to share experiences and promote WSP
implementation. The WOP-LAC provides an attractive mechanism for mobilising knowledge and expertise within the WSP Network to up-scale WSP implementation.
Further, IDB and IWA are developing a rating system to assess and score water and sanitation utilities’ efficiency levels, based on objective and standardised criteria, reflecting the sector specificities; and to recognize good performance.
Contact details:
WOP-LAC secretariat in Washington D.C.:
IDB:
Contact person: Ms Corinne Cathala
Phone: +1 202 623 2759
E-mail: corinnec@iadb.org
UN-HABITAT:
Contact person: Mr Tomas Lopez de Bufala
Phone: +254 20 762 5325
Cell: +254 716 257 616
E-mail: tomas.lopez@unhabitat.org
IWA:
Contact person: Mr Steen Bjerggaard
Phone: +46 708 262 418
E-mail: steen.bjerggaard@iwahq.org
North America
Under the umbrella of the IWA WOPs programme, operators identified by the American Water Works Association (AWWA) and the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) seek to partner with water operators in developing countries in efforts to improve operations at these developing
operators. The proposed programme is for up to 10 water operators in the US to provide training partnerships with up to 10 water operators in developing countries. The US operators will provide on-site training, skills development, and best practices exchange. The programme is proposed to be offered annually.
Oceania
The Australian Water Association (AWA) has shown significant interest in organizing the Australian water utility community to support WOPs abroad.
The Global WOPs Alliance Secretariat recently initiated contacts with the Pacific Water and Wastewater Association (PWWA), the Pacific Islands Applied Geo-science Commission (SOPAC), ADB, and IWA to establish a regional WOP-Pacific platform.
IWA is working with a concept of establishing a SIDS (Small Island Development States)- WOPs platform for the Pacific Islands, with Non-Revenue-Water (NRW), Water Safety Planning (WSP) and Disaster Preparedness / Response being some of the core themes for activities. The concept is being discussed with the PWWA, ADB and UN-HABITAT.
The SIDS programme might be coordinated with the WOP-LAC programme for the Caribbean Islands. Two of the partnerships mentioned in Table 6 in section
Asia are taking place between operators in Australia and the Philippines respectively Viet Nam, facilitated by ADB:
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