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 Description and main objectives
The projects all started with a diagnosis mission aiming at assessing the situation of the mentee utilities, discuss 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 on 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 an halt to the field visits and the teams couldn’t travel any more. 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.
Action Plan:
WORKING AREAS | MAIN ISSUES TO SOLVE | MAIN ACTIONS PROPOSED |
Non Revenue Water | Conduct Water Balance in DMAs | Installation of DMA bulk meters and construction of chambers |
Conduct Water Balance at Organizational level | Installation of production meters | |
Reduce commercial losses | Faulty and aged meter replacement; Installation of high accurancy meters for corporate customers | |
Improve response time to faults and customer complaints | Introduce functional control centers at the zone level to coordinate field team, customer complaints and provide feedback to customer service. | |
Improved infrastucture management | Mapping and digitizing of all pipe network, customer meters and infrastructure | |
NRW Master Plan | Develop and implement NRW Master Plan | |
Reduced physical losses | Introduce periodic sweep teams targeting specific areas for leak detection and maintenance of faults | |
Improved pressure management | Enhance pressure management function | |
Develop Maintenance Plan | Develop and implement network and transmission maintenance plan |
Billing & Collection | Improve debtors days | Installlation of pre-paid meters to government institutions to reduce the growth of debtors |
Improve meter reading and billing | Implement smart technology in meter reading and billing | |
Customer Service | Well structured call center | Redefine and restructure the call center function |
Well structured communication framework | Develop and implement a communication policy | |
Improve markerting outreach | Develop and implement markerting strategy | |
Energy Efficiency | Improve energy consumption | Energy efficiency audits |
Development of motor policy |
Water Demand Management | Improve access to potable water | Develop and implement water conservation and demand management strategy |
Improve awareness on water conservation and demand management | Develop and implement Public awareness and education programme | |
Improve water crisis management | Long term water use conservation intervention plan | |
IT | Improve business operating systems | Integration of system |
Enhance data recovery unit | Establishment of standby back up decentralization center | |
Operations and Management | Improve management of supply and distribution infrastructure | Implement SCADA system to effectively monitor Board’s supply and distribution infrastructure |
68 bulkmeters were newly installed and 45 chambers constructed so far.
Water balancing is being done in 76 DMA's
6 production meters have been installed at Walker's Ferry (2), Chileka (3), Nguludi (1)
1,859 faulty meters have been replaced
128 high accuracy meters were installed.
Conducting Water Audits in DMAs
Enhance pressure management function
Mapping and digitization of all pipe network and meter connections
Developed NRW Reduction Strategy
On site billing was implemented
Partners also indicated the following challenges:
Mentee
• Financial capacity to fund projects
• Illegal water connections
• Vandalism
• Inadequate materials due to financial constraints
• Poor working culture
• Inability to spend the 50,000 USD granted under the project for small equipment
Mentor
• Travel restrictions affected face-to-face interaction of mentees and eThekwini subject matter officials
• Travel restrictions prevented mentors to monitor and evaluate the technical achievement of the Blantyre team.
• Technical training needs to be on-the-job and hands-on. Online skills transfer is not ideal.
• Testing and field data gathering equipment to conduct the short-term action plan should have been procured earlier in the project to allow mentees to gather on-site information
• Timing of online training sessions was not well coordinated with the diaries and availability of the mentors.
• Mentors had to juggle between daily employer-related duties and mentorship training