3 ways countries can improve water supplies in small towns
Small towns typically have not been well served by national or regional water utilities. Decentralization has become increasingly widely adopted, but even if local governments at the small town level have the power to operate a water utility, they often lack the capital and skills to do so. In response, some local governments and public institutions concentrate improvements on upgrading public utilities’ operations or strengthening community based management. In other cases, they choose to bring in the private sector knowledge of how to get clean water and sanitation services to more people more efficiently, affordably or sustainably. There is no one solution to addressing often very complex water and sanitation challenges.
There are many ways in which the public sector can leverage its own resources through partnering with the private sector. For the domestic private sector to fully realize its potential at scale in the small town sub-sector, we found they need capable and enabled public institutions to structure the
market and regulate private operators. Lessons learned from case study countries( Colombia, Bangladesh, Philippines, Uganda, Cambodia, Niger and Senegal) in a new global study published by the Water Global Practice’ s Water and Sanitation Program suggest the following three key ways to support public institutions in order to build a conducive business climate for market players in small towns Water Supply and Sanitation( WSS) service delivery:
1. Increase citizen engagement: Involving civil society and other stakeholders in a well-designed and properly resourced dialogue process is crucial to address concerns and raise awareness about private sector participation issues. In Bangladesh, inadequate attention to this issue was found to be detrimental to efforts to improve water services. In contrast, the Government of the Philippines has created a Public-Private Partnership( PPP) Center, which acts as a knowledge centre of PPPs. The
16 Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene • November- December 2016