Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This note summarizes lessons from the Water and Sanitation Program's (WSP) technical assistance to improve performance and cost-recovery at the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC) and Sierra Leone's Guma Valley Water Company (GVWC). The focus on cost-recovery reflects its critical importance to the viability of utilities. There are 'almost no examples in developing countries' of utilities 'whose operating revenues are significantly below O&M costs and that are nevertheless able to develop and maintain their infrastructure and provide a reliable and efficient service'. (McPhail, and others, 2012). WSP's technical assistance sought to strengthen reform efforts initiated by the management teams at LWSC and GVWC by improving the utilities' ability to sustainably fund their operations. Three aspects of cost-recovery were prioritized: (a) improving metering, billing and collection processes (b) reducing commercial non-revenue water and (c) investigating options to expand the utilities' revenue base by connecting new customers more effectively.

Cost Recovery --- Sanitation and Sewerage --- Water Supply --- Water Supply and Sanitation --- Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Water stress has become a problem in most Indian cities, as rapid population growth increases simultaneously water demand by households, industries, and power plants. Utilities need to meet this growing demand while ensuring fair tariffs for users and promoting a sustainable use of water resources. As federal and state governments look for innovative alternatives to freshwater, the reuse of treated wastewater is gaining attention and being promoted at the federal and state levels. In addition to the environmental, health, and social benefits of treating wastewater; treated wastewater can become a reliable water source for industrial users, freeing up freshwater resources for households and helping address water scarcity in big cities. The government of India has taken steps to promote wastewater reuse, starting with the regulation of industrial water consumption and the setting and enforcement of mandatory water reuse targets for industries. The national target is to treat and reuse 50 percent of total wastewater by 2022 (PwC 2016). Some cities have set their own, more ambitious targets, and states such as Gujarat (Government of Gujarat, 2018) and Maharashtra (IndianExpress, 2017) have implemented new policies to promote wastewater reuse. Moreover, the government of India has adopted policies, established strong mechanisms of regulation, and provided funding for various programs, such as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), to enable municipal authorities to enter into public-private partnership (PPP) arrangements to attract private funding. As a result, municipalities across the country have started to implement wastewater reuse projects. Most of these initiatives are led by utilities, through partnerships with the private sector, and with the central government covering part of the capital costs. The success of these projects reveals that wastewater reuse activities can be viable if properly structured and supported by enabling policies and institutions.

Power Sector --- Thermal Power --- Wastewater --- Wastewater Treatment --- Water Supply and Sanitation --- Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions --- Water Treatment and Quality

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

The Water Global Practice, under the WSS GSG Utility Turnaround thematic area, has implemented the Global Study on WSS Utility Aggregation to provide evidence-based guidance to policy makers and practitioners regarding when, why, and how water and sanitation utilities can work together ("aggregate") to successfully deliver specific policy outcomes, such as better services or lower costs. This work builds on a review of existing literature and an analysis of both qualitative and quantitative evidence, a global data set of international trends, a utility performance database, and a series of case studies. The deep-dive of 14 case studies of aggregation processes in seven countries (Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Indonesia, Portugal, Mozambique, Romania) allowed conducting a qualitative analysis, by centering on the stakeholders involved, the decisions made, the roles of sector actors and their incentives, and the perceived outcomes with a view to bringing forward the essence of each case experience. The selection of the countries and specific providers was done in a manner to ensure a diversity of geography, development level, size, and aggregation design.

Environment --- Water Policy & Governance --- Water Resources --- Water Resources Management --- Water Supply --- Water Supply and Sanitation --- Water Supply and Sanitation Economics --- Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This study is focused on Clean Team, a social enterprise providing container-based sanitation (CBS) services in Kumasi, the second-largest city in Ghana with a population of 2.7 million in 2018. Clean Team is owned by Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), a nonprofit partnership between the private sector, civil society, and academia. Clean Team delivers a single service: rental and regular servicing of in-house portable toilets, which includes transporting feces to a centralized treatment facility but not the processing and reuse of excreta. Customers find the Clean Team toilet appealing and Clean Team services are affordable compared to other alternatives. External subsidies, provided through public and philanthropic grant funding, have been necessary for Clean Team to cover its costs. Clean Team has been working, with support from funders and external advisers, on improving the efficiency of its services and reducing costs. Going forward, Clean Team could benefit from a clearer policy environment, which would allow them to increase the scale of their operations based on a more cost-efficient business model.

Sanitation --- Waste Disposal and Utilization --- Waste Management --- Water Supply and Sanitation --- Water Supply and Sanitation Economics --- Water Supply and Sanitation Finance --- Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

How can water resource agencies make smart investments to ensure long-term water reliability when the future is fraught with deep climate and economic uncertainty? This study helped SEDAPAL, the water utility serving Lima, Peru, answer this question by drawing on state of the art methods for decision making under deep uncertainty. These methods provide techniques for evaluating the performance of a water system over a wide range of plausible futures and then developing strategies that are robust across these futures. Rather than weighting futures probabilistically to define an optimal strategy, these methodologies identify the vulnerabilities of a system and then evaluate the key trade-offs among different adaptive strategies. Through extensive iteration and collaboration with SEDAPAL, the study used these methods to define an investment strategy that is robust, ensuring water reliability across as wide a range of future conditions as possible while also being economically efficient. First, on completion, the study helped SEDAPAL realize that not all projects included in the Master Plan were necessary to achieve water reliability, and the utility could save 25 percent (more than USD 600 million) in investment costs. Second, the study helped focus future efforts on demand-side management, pricing, and soft infrastructure, a refocusing that is difficult to achieve in traditional utility companies. Third, the study helped SEDAPAL gain the support of regulatory and budget agencies through the careful analysis of alternatives. Fourth, the study allowed the utility to postpone lower priority investments, and to analyze future options based on climate and demand information that simply is not available now.

Governance and institutions --- Long-lived infrastructure investments --- Town water supply and sanitation --- Water & industry --- Water conservation --- Water resources --- Water supply & systems --- Water supply and sanitation