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8/12/2019 Improving Water Operator Finances Through Better Practices – Experiences From East Africa
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The Fast Track Capacity Building programme
implemented by the National Water and Sewerage
Corporation (NWSC) in Uganda under UN-HABITAT’s
‘Water for African Cities’ programme demonstrates that
an integrated programme of training and capacity
building, combined with investments in physical
infrastructure, offers the best hope of improving
institutional capacities to reduce non-revenue water,
improve service delivery and increase the sustainability of investments in the long-term. GRAHAM ALABASTER discusses
the programme’s success in five towns in Kenya
and Tanzania.
CAPACITY BUILDING
It is only in recent years thatcountries in sub-Saharan Africa
have started to emerge from thehighly centralised water sectorssupported by donor agencies,which have focused primarily onthe main urban centres.This hasleft the infrastructure in manysmall towns neglected due to alack of investment in rehabilita-tion and a lack of technical andmanagerial capacity within theorganisations responsible formanaging the assets.This has
led to high rates of leakage andrevenue losses, which haveundermined the financial status of most small town operators.
At the same time, the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs) have
focused resources on increasing servicecoverage, with far less attention paidtowards the ensuring the sustainabilityof these services or improving theoperation and maintenance (O&M)of existing assets.This results in thesituation shown in Figure 1, whichshows the difference between thetheoretical values of access to improvedwater facilities (measured as coverageas reported by theWorld HealthOrganisation (WHO) / UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program) andthe actual access,taking into account
the inadequacies of supply based upondata from five small towns in Kenya.
This situation invariably reducescustomer’s willingness to pay, whichhas knock-on consequences onutilities’ revenue and undermines
institutional capacities to sustain theservices.An evaluation undertaken bythe World Bank’s IndependentEvaluation Group in 2009 concludedthat most municipal developmentprojects – including those with water supply components – paid littleattention to O&M, leading to negativeproject results and significantlyincreasing the risk to developmentoutcomes1.It is therefore clearlyapparent that there is an imperativeneed to focus on the O&M require-ments of water and sanitation infra-
structure in order to improve servicedelivery on a sustainable basis.
The UN-Habitat capacity buildingprogramme on utility managementA good example of an initiative thathas been designed to systematicallyaddress the problems described above isthe UN-HABITAT’s CapacityBuilding Programme on UtilityManagement.The programme wascarried out between June 2007 andAugust 2008 in the five towns of theLakeVictoria RegionWater andSanitation (LVWATSAN) Initiative:Muleba and Bukoba inTanzania andKisii, Gusii and Homa Bay in Kenya.
The overall objective was tosupport the financial and operationalsustainability of the capital investmentsprovided under the LVWATSAN
Figure 1:
Access to water in
Kenyan towns
Improving water operator finances through better
practices – experiences from East Africa
An official receives
water pipes forthe
LVWSAN initiative in
HomaBay, Kenya.
Credit: UN-HABITAT.
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8/12/2019 Improving Water Operator Finances Through Better Practices – Experiences From East Africa
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complaints and the actions taken.The aim was to improve thehandling of customer complaintsand provision of feed back to
the customers.
Key achievements and outcomesAs a result of the capacity buildingactivities described above, the utilitieswere observed to develop a stronger feeling of ownership and a better understanding of the need to work as ateam to overcome key constraintsaffecting the performance of theorganisation. Divisions betweenmanagement and staff were observedto decrease with the staff showinggreater support for managementdecisions.This has also led to internal
staff reorganization, improved manage-ment structures and a markedimprovement in the ambience of boththe offices and installations,which hasimproved their corporate image.
All the utilities have improvedtheir documentation and reportingcapabilities.With the monitoringand evaluation reporting templatesdeveloped during the execution of theprogramme,data and information iscaptured on a regular basis.Throughthe reporting templates,the utilitiescan now track their performance over time and produce comprehensive
monthly and quarterly reports.Table 2 summarizes the key out-
comes in two of the utilities:GusiiWater and Sanitation Company(GWASCO) in Kisii, Kenya andBukobaWater and SewerageAuthor ity(BUWASA) in Tanzania.
Pilot areas were block mapped ineach of the towns which has enabledthe utilities to easily identify their customers in these zones and toincrease the efficiency of metering. For example, BUWASA increased meter-ing efficiency from an average of 58%before the PIP to 95% in the periodof nine months after the introductionof the PIP in September 2007.Thenew computer billing system has nowbeen installed in all the towns andcustomized to suit each utility’scircumstances.This has enabled
computerized generation of billsthat can easily be referenced to thecustomer data base and integratedwith the block mapping.
GWASCO managed to reduceNRW from 62% before theprogramme to 41% in the period of nine months after the introduction of the PIP in September 2007.Theseimprovements were as a result of implementation of better monitoringcombined with an improved responseto leaks and bursts.Examples of revenue collection improvements for BUWASA are shown in Figure 2.Improvements were noted in revenuecollection in all the towns, although insome cases the targets set for eachquarter in the PIP were not achieved.
Institutionalization of improvedoperational and management practicesThe reductions in NRW can beattributed to both the infrastructuredevelopments and hardwarecomponents provided by UN-HABITAT combined with the skillsacquired by the staff acquired duringthe FastTrack Capacity Buildingprogramme.The results that have beenachieved demonstrate that an integrat-ed programme of training and capacitybuilding combined with investments inphysical infrastructure offers the best
hope of improving institutionalcapacities in the long-term.
The key to achieving the institu-tionalization of O&M practices is toensure that there is a demand withinthe organization from all levels instaff from the director down to thetechnicians, who are responsible for
actually implementing changes inO&M practices.These changes needto be enshrined in the organization’sstrategic and policy and business
plans.As well as changes in operationalchanges from a technical perspective,there is a need for specific toolsthat enable managers to makedecisions related to operation andmaintenance practices.
Training programmes must berelevant and ‘hands on’ and should besupported by assistance in systemsdevelopment.The training provided byNWSC has been immensely beneficialto the utilities participating in theprogramme.However, the quality of the existing staff needs to be strength-ened further through tailor-made
training programmes.These mayinclude asset management tools,standard operating procedures and / or performance monitoring indicators.UN-HABITAT is aiming to collabo-rate with IWA,WHO and theNational Institute of Public Heath in Japan under the umbrella of theOperation and Maintenance Network(see box) to meet these capacitybuilding needs.
ReferencesNWSC (2008) Fast Track Capacity Building
Programme For Utilities. Final Project Report
(September 2008).LakeVictoriaWater and
Sanitation Initiative,NWSC External Services,
Uganda
Note1 World Bank (2009) ImprovingMunicipal Management for Cities toSucceed:An IEG Special Study.Independent Evaluation Group,Knowledge Programs and EvaluationCapacity Development (IEGKE),Washington DC.
Table 2: Key outcomesof the capacity building in two ofthe participating utilities
Performance indicator GWASCO BUWASA
Sept 2007 June 2008 Sept 2007 June 2008
(Before PIP) (Before PIP)
Water produced (m3 /d) - 2778 - 5695
Unaccounted for water (NRW) 62% 41% 59% 51%
Revenue c ollection ( USD) 12,773 21,133 24,923 48,369
O& Mexpenditures (USD per month) 27,917 22,423 31,032 50,869
Working r atio ( expenditure / revenues) 2.2 1.06 1.25 1.05
Number of metered connections 696 1,676 2,720 5,220
Metering efficiency (%) 15% 29% 58% 90%
Figure 2:
Vicious cycle
of poor service
delivery
exacerbated bypoor O&M
Figure 3:
Revenue collection
trends for BUWASA
(July 2007 –
June2008)
%
o f ( p o t e n t i a l
) r e v e n u e c o l l e c t e d
About theauthor
Graham Alabasteris Chiefof Section I oftheWaterSanitation and InfrastructureBranch in theHuman SettlementsFinancingDivision of theUnited NationsHuman Settlements Programme UN-Habitat, Nairobi, Kenya.Email: [email protected]
