 in which water is wisely managed, in an equitable and sustainable way. IWA Connect is the place where you can find other professionals, share information and work together to develop your ideas by creating your own IWA experience online. IWA Connect will help you easily find and engage with your peers worldwide. Join groups to collaborate and contribute to specialist discussions based on your expertise area, location and projects. Connect to share your insights, profile your work, learn about industry developments and innovate solutions. Grow your knowledge and network. And this is only the beginning. IWA Connect inspiring change by connecting you to the global network of water professionals. Good afternoon everybody. Good afternoon. My name is Marie Whaley. Thank you. My name is Marie Whaley. I'm a board member of the International Water Association. I'm also the treasurer for the association. So I hold the strings of the purse. Welcome to this session. We've already had two fantastic days or just over two fantastic days of sharing, connecting with each other, great presentations and talks. This session here today we're going to talk about utilities and utility management. So many of us in the association work for a utility, work for a utility or work with a utility. And as utilities we contribute to the thinking, to leading edge thinking, tackling challenges, but we also very much contribute to the development of solutions. And those solutions are there to deliver the services, deliver those essential services that we've spoken about so often throughout the two days. And making the delivery and access to water and sanitation become a reality in cities and rural areas. I worked for 25 years in utilities and I've met many other leaders and practitioners in the association. I'm always amazed to see that wherever we are in the world we share the same challenges, we share common issues and we very often come up with great ideas, similar great ideas and common ways to tackle them. So I'm a strong believer that within the association we have much to share and we have much to learn from each other. And today in this session it's my great pleasure to introduce our keynote speaker, Dr. Silva Magusha. Silva, if you want to come and join me. Silva is managing director of the National Water and Sewerage Corporation in Uganda and where he's worked for over 25 years. So Silva has got, and I've had many conversations and exchanges with Silva, huge experience of the challenges and has also led successful transformation programs to improve performance. Silva has previously worked in many countries as well as many organizations including consultancies and that gives him, in addition to his experience in the utility leader gives him a deep understanding of the end-to-end process of service delivery. So hand over to Silva who's going to deliver to us his keynote address. Thank you. Thank you very much, Marie, for those nice introductions. Ladies and gentlemen, today I will be talking about utility management in emerging economies. And I got the momentum yesterday when my good friend Hamath was presenting or was chairing a session and he said, is the problem water resources or management of water resources? And I think what we shall be talking about today is major management of these water systems in emerging economies. And I want to look at, begin with the state of our service delivery now. You all know that over one billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to clean water and most countries are actually struggling to make progress towards SDGs. The challenges are many. We have demographic changes. People are increasing more than the rate at which water coverage is increasing. We have climate change, which is a real issue. In Africa, for example, we have many countries where water resources have dried and utilities have virtually have no supply to give to the people. We have customers whose expectations are changing. Every time we try to satisfy the customer, tomorrow he needs better services. These are challenges. We have technology. You bring the technology today, tomorrow you need a better technology. You have infrastructure gaps. The infrastructure is not enough and you need huge resources in order to match infrastructure needs with demand. You have governance and staffing gaps. Governance issues, issues of corruption, issues of integrity in these developing economies. Now, what do SDGs aim to achieve? You all know that SDG number six aims to secure water for all in the world and developing economies have the biggest challenge here. I just chose a few focus areas where I think developing economies need to put particular emphasis in order to improve the management of these utilities. And one of it is innovative financing structure. I know when you look at the barren sheet of these utilities, you already see debt and equity there. And if you are not careful, if you amass a lot of debt with a view of paying it, what that one means is that you need a tariff that can be able to pay your debt. And yet in these emerging economies, you have the rich and the poor people. And SDG six does not say it is only the rich who should get water, it is also the poor people. So we have to engage governments for grants to support services to the poor people. And we also must charge efficiently for those people who are able to pay. The other focus area is the staff. There is no utility in these emerging economies that will survive if it doesn't have well-capacitated people. Capacity is at all levels. Capacity is at the lower level that is vocational skills. Capacity is at the middle level, managerial skills. Capacity is at the top, at the leadership level. And now we are talking of the board and probably the top management. We also have in these emerging economies, utilities must operate like any other business. They must know that they must offer a value proposition that satisfies customers. Gone should be days when a utility says I'm a public organization and I just need to comply. I don't mind what the customers think about. So it's very, very important that much as you might be a public utility, you operate like any other private sector who cares so much about customers. We need to leverage technology as a key tool of disruption. In leadership, we all know that if you want to create continuous change, you must be uncomfortable with the status quo. And what will help you to do this is technology. There's an idea which I've fronted recently. I told people that emerging economies no longer want to buy technology. They want to buy ideas to create technology. Because for how long will a certain group of people be condemned to buying and another group is falsary. So I think it is very, very important that even in emerging economies, people can create their own technologies for sustainability. There are services in rural and per-urban areas. Utilization is the answer. What the kind of system you use in the urban areas can also be used for the per-urban areas and also the rural areas. And this urge to chase break-even status needs to be pursued in a phased manner. There's no way you'll break even when you are serving low income communities by and large. But there's also no way you'll sustain a utility if you are not able to meet your costs. But this frontier needs to be pursued in a phased manner so that the tariff remains affordable and people remain willing to pay for it. Lastly, one of the areas I also want to bring to you is collaboration, partnerships. We are now talking of next practice, not best practice. Because when you talk of best practice, if you are already there, then what should you do? So I think every utility must be looking at something which is better than what it is doing at that particular time. And that is, we'd rather talk of next practice rather than best practice and we can only do this through collaboration. Just briefly about national water, especially on these areas I've talked about. It's a public organization but which operates like a private sector. You come to Uganda, you'll find a national water which is public, 100% owned by government, but operating like a private sector. With a dream to be a custom, a leading customer service oriented organization in the world. This is a dream but we think we should be better than any utility in Japan, any utility in the US, any utility in... It's a dream, don't ask me when will you reach there, but it gives us momentum to work hard and make things better. Looking at the status now, national water is operating in 253 towns of Uganda with a turnover of about 450 billion Uganda shareings and making a surplus after depreciation. We make a surplus of about 95 billion that is before depreciation, but even a surplus after depreciation. We have a service coverage of about 84% and a staffing complement of about 3,700 and we're now coming to about 660,000 connections. So it is not a very big organization but also not a very small organization. Over time, national water has moved through a number of growth indicators you can see. 1998 we are 12 towns, we are now 253 towns but most importantly is the surplus. We were making a loss in 1998, now we make a surplus. National water is an institution that every bank wants to borrow money. We are being very careful, we are given a ranking of AA plus by an international credit rating company but we are careful how to go and pick too much money from the bank and pay for it. We are rather opted for some, not nothing but something to give us a track record of borrowing and paying back so that we can borrow much, much more. I just want to draw a few lessons. If you want to manage a successful utility in an emerging economy, you must manage as a team. Not one person can manage an institution. So in national water, we manage as a team, we also put focus on action, not talking too much but action for us the definition of leadership in national water is not a position but action making things happen. We are also looking at maintaining economic principles. Any utility which is supplying a service in which it is putting inputs must find a way of that service being paid for and economic principles apply but of course you have to be innovative how you can keep low income people paying for the service and also high income people paying. We are also putting emphasis on service for all, again this is a challenge. You cannot think of SDG6 if you are not focusing on service for all and therefore one of the efficiency measures we take is we keep costs down and we put efficiency up mainly through technologies. There is a complicated formula there. It's the formula we use to calculate the incentive. We pay our staff every month. And so we put emphasis on incentive payments and also smart engagement of our staff. We put emphasis on career growth. You want to maintain the royalty of staff. You must make sure that when the organization succeeds, the staff also succeed. And that's how we also make sure that the career growth of people is improving as the organization is improving. We also put emphasis on enhancing individual and team accountability. We use a lot of technology. Everything in National Auto is computerized. Payment systems are computerized. Building systems are computerized. Using technologies that have been developed by our own people. And I'm always very proud that most of these technologies are developed by our own service. So if you are here exhibitors, if you want to sell us technology, you are talking to a wrong person. We want you to sell us how you developed your technology so that we can also develop our own technology in National Auto. Emphasizing external stakeholders and networking. That's why we like working with IWA because it helps us to network. We like working with African Water Association because it helps us to network. I want to conclude and say that there is a big nexus between sustainable success and being comfortable with disruption. In other words, being uncomfortable with the status quo. We think that is how we are going to manage a successful utility in an emerging economy. I put the book there. You can Google it, Sustaining High Performing Public Enterprises, A Case of National Water. Where most of the things I've been talking are. It's a book which I authored recently. It's a new publication by IWP. And if you Google it, you'll be able to find it. I want to thank all of you for coming and listening to me. Thank you very much. Thank you, Silver. Thank you for this fantastic presentations. I particularly enjoyed the next practice bit, which really keeps us thinking ahead. I want to introduce our panel, please. I'll call to join Silver and me on the stage, please. Starting with Alinda Ibrahimilare. So Alinda is project manager in the Public Water Utility in Albania in Europe. She's got over 10 years of experience in infrastructure projects, but also capital improvement programs, operations and management within the context of utilities. She's also the chair of the Young Water Professional Emerging Leaders. So big responsibility there for the next generation. Thanks very much, Alinda, joining us. And my next panel member is Tilena Bicitunga. So Tilena, if you don't mind joining us as well. So Tilena is from the National Water Supply and Drainage Board. And again, with over 32 years of experience in utilities cutting across, again, from all aspects of utility management, but with a particular passion, Tilinda, for planning, if I'm right, and strategic planning. Thank you. And finally, I'll ask Ed, Ed McCormick, to join me as well. So Ed is currently president of consultancy, focusing on helping utilities to transform into I think what he calls and labels sustainable utility of the future. But Ed, very importantly, has worked most of his career as general manager of utilities in the United States. And I want to point out, and I'm sure it will excite you to know that the utility where Ed worked became the first water utility in North America to become net energy positive. And if that's not impressive enough, that was seven years ago. So I think we all have the bar high there. Thank you all. I'll join us and start with some of the questions and the discussion. Thank you. So again, I mean, we've heard a lot from Silver and a lot of good messages and focusing our minds on six areas. But also, I just want to talk about the challenges from you, how the presentation from Silver and as mentioned, the challenge is resonated with you and your own experience and the utilities. And also, if you have a word to add on lessons learned, it'll be really helpful. Linda, do you mind making a start? Thank you very much for being on the panel and actually for bringing the issue of the utilities and keynote session and keynote plenary session today. I'm working in a utility for the last 10 years. I've been working in Albania, which is a transitional economy, actually. So most of the challenges that Silver mentioned, they're quite resonating to me. I would stop in two and perhaps we can elaborate a bit later, but I'll stop on the two that what are the most challenging in Albania. We actually have a new reform going in the country that brings the rural area together to the service area of the utility. So one of the challenges that we are focusing now is the discrepancy of the service provider, the water service providers and sanitation from urban areas to the rural areas. And I'll give an example of that. For example, my utility is providing 100% of the water supply to the urban areas, but the rural areas is uncovered and less than 50% they do have sewers. We're not talking about sanitation issues in Albania, we're talking about wastewater treatment. And if I give a data of general in Albania, only 10% of the wastewater is going to treat it. So there are two issues here, urban and rural. And the most issues faced by utilities in the country are costs generated by operation and maintenance. So most of the utilities are not able to fully operate and maintain their infrastructures. And it needs a lot to be done towards that. Also, if we add the issue of affordability that I'll see if they'll already mention that. That's my perspective. Well, I'm representing National Water Supply and Rage Board. Compared to Uganda utility, we all have about 800,000 connections, I suppose. We have 2.4 million connections. Then the national organization in charge of water as well as sewerage. The sanitation aspect is looked after by the local authorities, the toilets, the point sources. We have the coverage about 40% of total coverage. We have the pipeline water supply coverage. We have the water tariff, but we cannot recover the full capital costs and the operational cost through the tariff structure. That's the difficulty we are facing. Up to now, the government was extending capital subsidies. And then the government wanted us to be independent and then they brought in an independent regulator. They wanted us to be independent and want to establish an independent regulatory mechanism as well. With the assistance of Asian Development Bank, World Bank. But the cost recovery issues is one of the key important issues because capital recovery and capital cost is possible. Full capital cost recovery. The partial capital to the extent of percentage is possible. Then with that, they wanted us to engage private sector harness, private sector capital to NSS. That's again another issue. We had been trying to engage a private party. So far, we have not been successful in that endeavour. That's the area where... Then comes to water resources. We have the... We are enjoying 2,000 millimetres of rainfall. That's substantial. But still the competing demand between agriculture and water... Because we are 30% of the population is engaged in agriculture. There's a huge issue and then water resources integrated. We don't have a PEX body. A body responsible for water resource management. It's fragmented. We have two, three ministries. That had become a major institutional issue, constraint and rigidity that we face. We had been trying to establish a PEX body to control the water resources. But still, that's another main issue that we are facing. When it comes to rural water supply, that is the area where we had made some headway. About 10% of the population is managed by... Covered by what you call community-based organisations. That model had been very successful. That's a good model that we can hear in Sri Lanka. That had been very successful. Those CBOs had operated... They had been operating successfully. They have their own water tariff systems. They recover the cost. They recover the capital cost. And they make a surplus as well. So there are a few... As a national body, we extend technical assistance. But they manage on their own. That model is quite successful here. When it comes to pipeline sewerage, as you said, Albania, you said 50% of the population gets engaged. But we have a long way to go. We have taken the national average. It's about 3-4% of the population gets pipeline coverage. It's very expensive. Pipeline sewerage is very expensive. So as a merchant economy, it's very difficult for us. What we are trying to do is to have... For the cities, highly popular cities, only we are focusing on pipeline sewerage facilities. For emerging cities or suburban cities, we are thinking of going for stabilization on collection systems of site treatment. So there are very moderate type of things. We have a kind of portfolio of this. But our health indicators are really good. Sorry. So, yes, similar challenges we are facing. So I'll pass on to my colleague. Great. Thank you. So most of my career with public utilities, two larger water and wastewater utilities. The most recent, a smaller utility, almost kind of like an emerging economy type utility. I have some experience in both of those. More recently, as a consultant, I've done a lot of work, largely through the US EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, working with a lot of different utilities around North America. And it's interesting that we... You know, whether we're developed or developing, we seem to have really common issues and challenges with utilities, from water scarcity to increasingly more stringent regulations, whether it be emerging contaminants or nutrients, causing dead zones in our estuaries around the globe. Rising customer demand that Silver mentioned, affordability clearly at the household level is a big issue everywhere I go. Aging infrastructure, the financial challenges of full-cost recovery, not just your ongoing operations and maintenance costs, but in addition, planning for your future capital replacement needs and making that worse, non-revenue water, inadequate revenues. So there's a lot of challenges, and of course the greatest environmental challenge of our time here with climate issues in our need now across the globe to reduce cabin footprint as well as, you know, and that means water and energy footprint as well. And frankly, in the United States, we're probably about the worst in the world with those footprints. I apologize for that. But what this climate issue is about is not enough water where we need it, when we need it, and too much water where we don't need it and when we don't need it. So what used to be 100-year storms are now happening every year or two. When I sit down with my regulator and they say, gee, Ed, you've had 200-year storms in the last year and a half. How do you explain that? What I tell them is the data that we've used historically is no longer useful. But with all those problems, what's the answer to all of these issues, whether you're in a developing economy or in a developed economy? The reality is it's people that solve these issues, right? And so attracting and retaining great people into the water sector is really job one for all of us in the water sector because without great people, you frankly cannot address these huge challenges in the sector. Thank you. Great call on the people there. And again, that's an area that Silver, you reminded us of in making sure that we not just have the skills, but we develop our people and we offer them the opportunity to take pride and get the reward for their contribution. Quickly in the few minutes that we have left out, I want to ask you a second question perhaps here from you, Silver and Alinda about we've heard a lot about we won't be able to deliver those services just by ourselves and we need to work in a collaborative manner. We need to have those partnerships. If you think of one, Silver, which one is the key partnership that you would see for a utility? Silver would be in your mind a key partnership to deliver and make sure that we get access to water and sanitation to everyone. What are those key partnerships for a utility? Thank you very much. I look at it in two ways internally. You definitely have a strong partnership with government. You must resonate with what your government wants and you must be able to measure up with the expectations of government. But externally, there are many other institutions that are doing so many things that can help to benchmark what I call the next practice. Our partnership with IWO for example, is helping us a lot. Our partnership with universities we do work with Laughborough University in the UK. We work with IHE in the Netherlands. We work with a utility called Vitens in the Netherlands. And these partnerships they help us a lot. They help us to show that what we are doing can be done even much better. And I think I'm a strong advocate of partnerships. It is something we should do and it is something that will continuously make us do better. Thank you. I had a quick view on the one partnership. The one that I was going to point to which is the peer-to-peer networking the criticality of having a community of practice with other like-minded to share and learn from each other. Since that was taken and I do agree with it I would say a second one would be really connecting utilities connecting with the innovators with the universities both at the funding applied research level of problems and our facilities but also supporting the smaller community colleges and even trade schools because that's where our future workforce our operators of the future our instrument techs the people that are actually on a day-to-day basis handling what's coming down the pipe come from. So I would say definitely the connecting with universities and really even primary school that's a good point to learn very quickly is there partnership coming to mind that you would see as key in a few words? As my colleagues say this what matters is the human capital so we need to network that's the reason we want to host this conference also to learn from learn from our counterparts what they had done now we are venturing into this and we have issues with chronic issues for quality issues and how to manage water resources and probably other areas so networking is extremely important and then collaborating with universities the very recent now I just finished another session when came we are linking with Chinese Academy of Science and we are building a state of the art lab to water quality it will expand to so we are looking for now we have come to a phase where to go beyond that to have synergy we need to network and we have to tap into the knowledge basis out there we can't do we can't find solution in isolation so we have to reach so this is why we are eager to build networks to get in touch and to have that platform build because we can't it's also time for us to be inventing and finding solutions that's what we learning and sharing again that's fantastic and Linda do you want to give us your views on key partnerships I think everything is mentioned on partnerships I would love to have government as a partner as well when we talk about utilities and the support that gives to stronger utilities especially when thinking about suspension and incentives all needed to recover all the cost that utility has just to edit that thank you so we unfortunately we are coming to the end of our session but I want to thank you all very much thank you for sharing your thoughts with us your knowledge as well our wonderful keynote speaker as well thanks Silva and I'd like to invite you all to join me in thanking our panel and giving them a celebrity I think I have the also the after you I'm reminded to remind you to vote for the poster so we have some slides just behind us here don't forget to vote for a poster tonight it tells you what to do and how to do it please make sure you do it and make sure that you elect you are very important for all these people who have put a lot of effort and knowledge in creating them thank you