Status:
Complete
Location:
Wolaita Sodo - Ethiopia
Region:
Africa
Total cost:
USD $65,000
Duration:
2 years 5 months
Start:
31 July 2019
End:
30 January 2022
Working Areas
Non-Revenue Water (NRW 1): Commercial Losses Management
Operation & Maintenance
Service in Low-Income Areas
Organizations Involved
Wolaita Sodo Town Water Supply and Sewerage Services Enterprise — Lead Mentee
eThekwini Water & Sanitation Services — Lead Mentor
African Water and Sanitation Association
—
Facilitator
The OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID)
—
Funder
The Global Water Operators’ Partnerships Alliance
—
Broker
SDGs
6.1Universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all
6.4Increased water-use efficiency and sustainable withdrawals and supply of freshwater
Project description

Following a first collaboration for 10 African WOPs in 2013-2015, OFID (the OPEC Fund for International Development) and GWOPA (the Global Water Operators Partnerships Alliance) had entered, in 2019 a new Agreement to help five water and sanitation utilities in Africa and Asia, to implement Short Term Action Plans and develop Medium Term Sustainability Improvement Plans (SIP) through WOPs. The African Water Association (AfWA) and WaterLinks coordinated at regional level the implementation of the WOPs projects with the utilities involved.  In Asia, 3 WOPs have been implemented : Chittagong Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Bangladesh) with Suez India as a mentor, Khulna Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Bangladesh) with Kota Surabaya, (Indonesia) as a mentor and Da Nang Water Supply Company (Vietnam) with Manila Water Company as a mentor (the Phillipines). In Africa, e-thekwini (South Africa) mentored both Blantyre Water Board (Malawi) and Sodo Town (Ethiopia).



During the 2.5-year long partnerships between the five pairs of utilities, “mentor” operators supported “mentees” with capacity development and change implementation in high-priority areas, ranging from improving billing and collection to energy efficiency, assembled in Short Term Action Plans (STAPs). The STAPs included originally a small investment component of 50,000 USD, such as a pilot project, to ignite long term changes towards sustainability.



Towards the end of the STAP implementation, the WOP partners conducted a more thorough joint analysis of the causes and potential solutions to their performance shortcomings and developed Sustainability Improvement Plans (SIPs) which would lay out a suite of longer-term improvement steps, combined with an investment component, to be implemented during a subsequent phase of improvement (lasting 3-5 years).



Throughout the process, the WOPs partners were supported by GWOPA to coordinate the partnering processes, on WOPs approaches and best WOPs practice; and with relevant technical training on themes requiring deeper learning. Key staff from participating operators shared their learning and showcased their experience through online Communities of Practice (CoPs) dedicated to various relevant technical issues and partnering issues as well, establishing bridges and fostering cross-fertilization between the regions.



The program was launched in May 2019, with a launching webinar and then a kick-off workshop in June 2019, organized in Barcelona, Spain, by GWOPA. Unfortunately, this was the last time GWOPA was able to hold an interregional workshop in presence of the participants, because of the Covid 19 pandemic. There were 2 intermediary interregional workshops held online, in November 2020, then October 2021 and eventually an online closing workshop in December 2021.

Project main objectives

The projects all started with a diagnosis mission aiming at assessing the situation of the mentee utilities, discussing their challenges, and identifying their priorities. GWOPA provided the SIP manual which guided the teams on the methodological approach for the planning of the projects. The mentees selected their priorities through participatory workshops and developed Short Term Action Plan for 3 to 4 working areas. Then the mentees visited their mentors to get some exposure on their good practices and working routines and refined their STAP. Unfortunately at this stage, the emergence of the Covid 19 pandemic put a halt to the field visits and the teams couldnt travel anymore. They had to switch to online activities for the rest of the capacity-building activities, training and monitoring of the implementation of the plans. This was quite challenging and the teams had to show some flexibility and resilience. The coordination work led by the facilitator was also much more intense as they had to lead the process of the transformation of field activities to online activities.



























Working Areas

Main issues to solve (Weakness)

Main actions proposed

Working Aera 1



Operation and



Maintenance (OM)

  •   No emergency planning and operational procedures developed and enforced

  • No water distribution SCADA system are adopted

  • No preventive maintenance

  • No continuous measurement, recording and analysis of operations through automatic devices (flow, volume, pressure, chemicals, energy etc.,)

  • Poor safety procedures

 




  • Develop emergency planning and operational procedures and approve it for enforcement

  • Develop technical and safety procedures for O & M

  • Develop crisis management plan on major risks

  • Training for responsible (Technical) staffs on the different plans and procedures prepared

Working Area 2 Non_Revenue Water (NRW)

  • Limited GIS application

  • NO District metric areas in place (DMA’s)

  • No pressure management in place

  • Existence of aged and inaccurate water meters

  • Lack of billing analysis

  • Lack of water balance in place

  • No active leak detection equipment in place

  • All utility (at offices, booster stations, sources, reservoir places) water consumptions are not metered

  • Very low customer engagement in water value.

  • Inaccurate production estimation

  • Poor quality of water meters in use

  • Reluctance on illegal connections

  • Training for responsible (Technical) staffs on NRW and its controlling mechanisms

  • Purchase and install smart and effective Bulk water meters at sources and at the inlet and outlet of reservoirs

  • Select DMA’s and at least install Smart District meters in one



selected distribution Zone




  • Replace old distribution pipes with new HDP (Sizes not greater than 1 inch)

  • Install smart water meters of size 0.5 inch

Working Area 3



Expanding Services to poor households (PH)

  • Rural poor households are not covered both in water supply and sanitation

  • Rural poor households not identified and not mapped

  • No awareness creation made for the poor households concerning water conservation

  • Connecting the Poor households with House connection free of charge (10 poor households)


 


Most significant results

 



























Working Areas​

Main actions proposed​



​

Main Achievement ​

Working Aera 1​



 Operation and Maintenance  (OM)​

 ​





  • Develop emergency planning and operational procedures and approve it for enforcement​




  •  Develop technical and safety procedures for O & M​




  •  Develop crisis management plan on major risks ​




  • Training for responsible (Technical) staffs on the different plans and procedures prepared ​





​

 ​





  • Emergency plan developed ​




  • Standard operation procedures developed and made the utility to become effective on day to day operations ​




  • Technical and safety procedures developed ​




  • Training given to all technical staffs on the above plans and procedures developed ​

Working Area 2​



 Non_Revenue Water (NRW)​


  •  Training for responsible (Technical) staffs on NRW and its controlling mechanisms ​




  • Purchase and install smart and effective Bulk water meters at sources and at the inlet and outlet of reservoirs​




  • Select DMA’s and at least install Smart District meters in one selected distribution Zone​




  • Replace old distribution pipes with new HDP (Sizes not greater than 1 inch)​




  • Install smart water meters of size 0.5 inch ​


  • Training given to all technical staffs on NRW and its controlling mechanism​




  • Smart bulk water meters  purchased and installed on selected sources of water and reservoirs ​




  • SCADA system developed for controlling NRW ​




  • DMAs selected and smart bulk water meters installed I​




  • Old distribution pipes mainly on the oldest part of the town replaced with new pipes  (12 km pipes replaced with new pipe)​




  • A pilot project of using smart water meters for households made for 200 households by replacing the existing mechanical water meters in order to check the accuracy of the meters for further decisions. ​




  • NRW task force organized in the office ​




  • Individual consultant hired to study the NRW of the utility and revisit the business plan of the utility​




  • Water balance model started ​

Working Area 3​



  Expanding Services to poor households (PH)​



 ​


  •  Connecting the Poor households with House connection free of charge (100 poor households) ​


  • 1125 Poor households connected with the utility water supply line  (the connection fee is free). Almost 6750 poor people get access to potable water ​




  • 72 rural schemes developed for the poor households in rural parts of the town (newly joined rural areas in the town boundary). Here 7200 rural households ​




  • Poor households of the town mapped using GIS ​




  • Database created for these poor households separately ​




  • Training given to these poor households in order to conserve water and on sanitation issues ​




  • Construction of 6 communal toilets under construction ​

Challenges
COIVD 19 situation limited face-to-face contact with our mentors and also within the office our activities were limited. ​

The political situation in Ethiopia made us work limited time because of the state of an emergency situation (which affected our operation and maintenance in a way that there was time limitation in every town of the country)​

The market inflation affected our work (more related with the political situation)