 Good afternoon. Good morning. Good evening to all. It's 10 o'clock in Geneva, where I'm based in Switzerland. It's four o'clock in the afternoon in Vietnam. My name is Robert Boss, and I'm here to welcome you to this webinar on compliance with water supply and sanitation laws, insights and best practices organized by IWA in collaboration with the Vietnamese administration for technical infrastructure of the Ministry of Construction in Hanoi. And I'm very happy to welcome you all to this webinar, which will address the efforts of the government of Vietnam to formulate a law on drinking water supply and sewerage. We have been working with the Vietnamese authorities to put some presentations together for this webinar that will highlight experiences from other parts of the region. And we also will hear from the Vietnamese authorities on the actual status of the preparation of this law and what the issues are that they would like to see discussed towards the end of the webinar. On the next slide, just to give you a few introductions of the issues that are important to keep in mind when you're working on Zoom. First of all, this webinar is available in both Vietnamese and English. And so at the bar at the bottom of your screen, you will find a sign that lets you choose the interpretation and that helps you to get the right language. There is English channel and there is what is called French, but that's really the Vietnamese language channel. You can also suppress the original channel by putting a sign on mute the original audio. If you have any problem, then put something, a question in the chat and that is being monitored throughout the webinar to see whether we can help you with specific issues related to this. As for the next slide, please, as for the workings of the webinar, first of all, I should say that the webinar will be recorded and made available on demand afterwards. And we hope that the speakers have looked after the securing of copyright permissions for any work they're presenting. And of course, any of the opinions and conclusions and recommendations that are contained in the presentations are those of the speakers only and not necessarily reflect the policies of IWA as an organization. On the next slide, you will see the webinar information. And we ask you to please, if the webinar for some reason suddenly ends, which can happen for technical reasons, that you get out of it and reconnect. And please use the chat box to and also the Q&A box to communicate with the organizers and submit any questions that you may have. On the next slide, you will get some further information on that. So you see that the chat box is there for general requests and interactive activities and the Q&A box is there for specific questions. So the next slide shows you the agenda. As you see, we'll have an opening and I will shortly hand over to Professor Viet Anh to give the introduction from the Vietnamese side. Then we will have three presentations from the international participants. One is a video, one by Tom Molenkopf, the president of IWA, and then two live ones with case studies from the Philippines by Jose Lito Rio de Dios and from Australia by David Cundliffe. After that we will go to the Vietnamese perspective specifically to the draft water and sewerage law by Mr. Duke. Following on from that, there will be the interactive panel discussion and I'll introduce you to the additional panelists also later on. And that will be ending with a conclusion and some summary by me and by Professor Viet Anh. So on the next slide, we'll see the, you see the moderators and speakers so I'm the first moderator, the other moderator is my co-moderator is Professor Viet Anh Guyen in Vietnam. And I would now like to hand over to him first to give his introduction to the webinar, Professor Viet Anh. Thank you Robert. I would like to welcome all the colleagues and representatives of the Vietnamese side. Vietnam is currently conducting a very fast, strong and direct development process. It is a demand for the water supply, the water supply and the water supply and the environment is very low. With 100 million people, nearly 20 million of the water supply a day is used to supply water for farmers, farmers and farmers. The water supply and the water supply and the environment is very low. Although there is a water supply and the water supply and the water supply and the environment is very low. But around the development of the water supply and the water supply, there is still a lot of work to be done. Not only the upper levels, but also the water supply and the water supply and the water supply. For the quality of water, quality of services on sustainable development, on green growth, on climate change adaptation. In the context in which the water resources is being depleted, the energy crisis and other challenges. The reason why the National Assembly and the Government of Vietnam have agreed to issue the law on water supply and drainage that will be completed in 2025. The focal point is MOC, the Department of Technical Infrastructure together with that. Our association, the VWSA is also an important focal point and together with that we also have the international organizations and experts accompanying us. And this webinar, I have also international experts and colleagues who also pay attention to the topic because law development and institutional arrangement are highly necessary for the water sector to develop, sustainably and efficiently. On Vietnam's side, we are very honored to introduce the President of VWSA, Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Diep, can you raise your hand. And also we have Dr. Chan Anh Tuan, Madam Ha Thanh Hang and us, the Deputy President of the Association, as well as partners of the VWSA on the Department of Technical Infrastructure with Mr. Tak Quang Vinh Director General, the focal point for developing water supply and drainage law in the MOC. We are very thankful to the IWA for your collaboration with VWSA to organize this webinar. Thank you for inviting leading famous experts in the world and in the region to come to this webinar. We hope that this webinar will be highly useful for Vietnam and for the participants of the workshop to serve our work. And we also hope that we will continue to collaborate with the IWA and other international partners in developing laws and other technical activity. I'd like to wish the webinar a great success. Thank you. Thank you very much Professor Viet Anh for these words of welcome. And so I would also like to welcome everybody and I'm very happy to see there's such a huge contingent of Vietnamese participants online. I would like to welcome you on behalf of the International Water Association. As you know, IWA is a global association of water professionals and practitioners. And very active in very many different fields related to water and sanitation through its specialist groups, through its various activities at the country levels. But of course also through its biennial World Water Congress and exhibition. The next one will be in 2024 in Toronto and the Water and Development Congress. The next one will be in December of this year in Kigali, Rwanda. And so IWA is very interested in supporting the Vietnamese authorities in the formulation of this law. And we understand that for this particular webinar, the key aspects of focus will be setting standards and norms. Looking at regulatory frameworks and also the mechanisms to ensure compliance with those standards and norms. And that is really something where our President Tom Molenkoff has a lot to say about because Tom is basically by training someone with a law background with a legal background, and he has from Melbourne Business School and MBA. He's now President of IWA since April 2021. And he's also in Australia Senior Advisor on Water Sector Strategy on Senior Associates with the Aether Consultancy and he's a member of the Australian Water Partnership Expert Review Panel. And so unfortunately Tom is travelling right now and cannot be with us live, but he has submitted his video to introduce the issues from his perspective to you all. And so I ask Isabella now to please turn on the video. Hello. It's wonderful to be with you for this joint International Water Association Vietnam Water Supply and Sewage Association webinar. What I wanted to talk to you about in the short time I have available is providing a context for water and sanitation law in Vietnam with some international perspectives. I'd like to start with the opening proposition that the legislative process is difficult at the best of times, but no more so than when it deals with water. The 19th century German philosopher Otto von Bismarck said that laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made. The other propositions that I'd like to put forward are that nevertheless water reform and water legislation is vitally important. But significantly it is achievable. By way of overview I'll provide a context for water law legislation and reform. I'll talk a little bit about designing effective water laws and then if time permits I'll talk through a couple of case studies and a conclusion. I think that the issues confronting Vietnam are well known in a global context. We see water scarcity, we see pollution and we see the impacts of climate change and other emerging risks around chemicals etc. Vietnam's water challenges, well you know them probably better than me, but historically Vietnam has been blessed with abundant water resources. A productive agricultural system routed in the fertile flood plains, delta and hillslopes of the region. Currently however Vietnam like much of Asia is experiencing population growth, rapid industrialization, urbanization and sadly sub optimal water infrastructure development together with that global phenomenon of climate change. All of this is leading to increasing water scarcity and specifically to competition for water. I said at the outset that water reform is hard, why is that? Well the first thing is that water is a fluid and fugitive resource and by this I mean that it's in constant movement in accordance with the hydraulic cycle. It's renewable but it's unpredictable because it's renewal depends on natural phenomena particularly rainfall which as we know is becoming increasingly unpredictable. Water reform deals with a highly emotional issue, water resonates with us in cultural, economic and social senses but in literature and art. We have strong often competing interests and within government there is often competition for time and money around the regulation of water. It's a valuable resource but often we don't value it or price it economically. I also said that water reform is essential and that's because as we all know water is a fundamental enabler of health, economic, well-being and social amenity. Sound water management practices impact not only on SDG6, they impact on over half the SDG targets either directly or indirectly. Given the changing circumstances, business as usual is no longer possible. Maintaining the status quo is not an option. We need better legislation. So we need new laws. Will that fix the problem? Well partly. New laws on water and sanitation are an important part of the solution but not the entire solution. Legislation is part of a broader framework or at least it ought to be. That broader framework should comprise a consideration of the governance architecture or the institutional structures surrounding water resource management. Government, regulators and the service delivery agencies, utilities, catchment managers etc. We also need to consider the capabilities and the capacity of our people. We have to look at whether there's going to be adequate funding for the things that are necessary around sound water resource management. And we need to bring our communities with us and understand their needs better. Finally I think there has to be common understanding between water utilities and society and regulators and society around the expectations and objectives of the law and then support that with a culture where we actually comply with laws rather than just have them sitting on a shelf. I'd also like to suggest that we are talking about not one water law but probably many water laws. This is necessary if we're going to respond to the multiple dimensions of water. They comprise for example drinking water supply, storm water and urban drainage, sewage management, flood mitigation and provision of water for irrigation services. This involves many different users and stakeholders including on a regulatory front where we very often deal with different agencies looking after farming, different agencies looking after flood mitigation and different agencies looking after urban water supply and sewage. We've got to consider not just consumptive uses like cities, industry and agriculture but also transportation on our waterways and cultural, social and recreational as well as environmental needs of our water. There will be different purposes and objectives for legislation as well and I'll talk about that in a moment. But finally our legislation needs to link between those different laws to ensure that they are complementary and mutually supportive and that they don't conflict with each other. There's also a chance to acknowledge the need for circularity. Water that hydrological cycle involves clean water, used water, the potential for recycling and reuse, not just seeing wastewater as a problem to be dealt with. Legislation also needs to be fit for purpose by which I mean it must be effective in achieving the job that it was designed to do. Laws must be suitable for and respond to local needs. We can learn from international experiences but I suggest we do not want to critically, uncritically rather adopt laws from elsewhere. We need to consider the differences between example countries and Vietnam or the country where we want to apply the law and think about the nature of the legal system, how they might differ. The respective legislative objectives between the two countries and the issues of language and culture, practices and institutional frameworks. Laws should consider also whether there's going to be a need to look after private sector participation or whether it's going to be substantially around government sector delivery. Private sector participation can comprise joint ventures, concessions, private public partnerships such as design, build, own, operate and transfer or build, own, operate or build, operate and transfer. Or it could be alliances. The question is if there is going to be substantial private sector participation you'll probably need different laws or perhaps contractual arrangements to deal with that than you would do if it was a service being provided substantially by a government agency. What then might a good suite of laws cover? Well I think first it's important to ensure that any legislation is simple and clear. Cover the essential elements, leave no gaps, provide a framework or an architecture within which society and industry can operate. The detailed laws I would envisage are going to include water quality and security of supply, the fundamental delivery of human needs and human health, but also environmental protection and environmental discharges. Source protection and catchment management and allocation of the resources would need to be covered. And I'd suggest that economic and pricing issues need to be covered by a good suite of water laws. Finally they will cover service delivery and service standards, risk management, possibly disaster response and planning for the future. In the short time remaining what I'd like to do is just talk about a few legislative drivers and challenges and the legislative approaches that have been taken in response to them in Australia. The first is that in response to increasing water scarcity in Australia, particularly in the agricultural sector, the nation adopted a water initiative back in 2004 that looked at a number of critical things around better utilization and more rational utilization of water. This started by setting a cap on the amount of water that can actually be taken from the environment out of river systems and from groundwater. This is to ensure that water is abstracted at a sustainable level and that we don't exceed the available water. The second thing is that there were clear rights given to water users about their entitlements to water. There was however a requirement that in a year in which there is less water available due to the regular fluctuations through drought etc. that the allocated water amount could be varied amongst users. Of note there was also a specific reservation that water must be kept available at all times for the environment. So we can't use 100% of the water that is available in our systems for consumptive uses without letting anything to maintain a healthy environment. There are opportunities for individuals to trade water so irrigators, farmers who have water entitlements can, if they don't need them or if they can make more money by selling those entitlements, they may trade them to another water user. And finally there is a comprehensive framework for monitoring water abstractions and for an accounting system around water that is utilised in our society. Within the urban sector there have also been challenges again particularly around meeting the demands of population growth with limited availability of water from rainfall, from surface water. The consequence of that has been that most urban utilities in Australia have adopted a portfolio response and by this I mean that they are now looking at multiple sources of water to meet our urban needs consumption and industry. So there is an increasing reliance on water recycling, on desalination and we are available on the use of groundwater resources. In addition there has been better management of our catchments and there has been a smart use of water with more efficient utilisation of water through a number of conservation schemes. All of these have required support from legislation and in some cases limitations around the way water that can be used to ensure that it is done efficiently and fairly. My final observation is that there has also been a gradual transition over recent years from large scale infrastructure and institutions to more flexible and distributed infrastructure that is a more integrated approach. This too means that we are no longer necessarily just regulating large water utilities or water suppliers but we need to have legislation that can deal with smaller onsite and devolved systems. I'd like to conclude by saying that I said at the outset that water reform, water legislation is difficult but it is achievable and I think Vietnam is a very well placed for water legislation reform process through anticipating the needs and opportunities in this space, through having a commitment at governmental and industry levels and through having a strong governance framework and capabilities upon which to build. There are some great opportunities and I hope very much that you'll be able to seize them. Thank you very much for your time. Okay, that was Tom Molenkopf's contribution, which I thought was very rich and comprehensive. Unfortunately, he's not there to answer any immediate questions you may have, because he's travelling as you've noticed. But the presentation gave a broad perspective. It focused on the Sustainable Development Goals, which showed that water is key and that better legislation is needed to achieve those goals. And I would like to also point to the fact that to monitor those goals we have some very specific, definitely well defined indicators that could also be usefully considered in the formulation of new legislation on water in Vietnam. Of course, he also placed the water law in the broader context and Professor Viet Anh already did that at the opening, when he indicated that of course there are other water related laws, including laws that deal with the broader water resources issues. And it's clear that any new water law on drinking water and sewerage will have to be harmonized with those existing laws. And actually the process of developing a new water and sewerage law should also be an opportunity to see whether the other laws need any updating. He talked about water fit for purpose and also about laws fit for purpose on learning lessons from other parts of from other countries and particularly countries in the region where Vietnam is. But making sure that what is developed for Vietnam is fit for the purpose that is there in Vietnam. And he talked about the circularity and the need to look at all aspects of the water cycle, including considering waste water as a resource rather than is waste. And he pointed to the essential elements of any water and sanitation law. So I think that's a lot of food for thought already, but I would like to now introduce the next speaker and that is Mr for silly 30 years. Who is a public health engineer is the head of the chief of the healthy environment and sanitation division in the Department of Health in the Philippines. He has many years of experience in the field of of regulation of water quality. And he is a long standing member of the WHO based regulators network, where he has been contributing both on issues related to the regulation of drinking water and also of sanitation. Because little the floor is yours. We're all listening to your experience in the Philippines. So again, I need you to read the regulations from the Department of Health Philippines. It is my privilege to be part of this webinar to share with you our experiences in relation to water and sanitation. Thanks to the organizers of the International Water Works Association and Vietnam Ministry of the National. Next slide please. So the Philippines water and sanitation are governed by three major national law. It's a law that governs the ownership, appropriation, utilization, exploration, development, conservation and protection of water resource. In terms of areas of regulations of the 1067, it focuses on the resource and economic regulation. The agency responsible for this is the National Water Resources Board. The another law is the presently 856 or the code of sanitation of the Philippines. It's a law that directs all public services towards the protection and promotion itself. As part of the code of sanitation, it describes standards and procedures to ensure the safe quality of drinking water as well as sanitation. In terms of areas of regulations of the code of sanitation, it focuses on drinking water quality regulation and sanitation regulation. The agency responsible to implement or enforce this law is primarily in the Department of Health where I belong and of course the local government unit. The local government unit, we have about 1800 local government units that implement or enforce the provisions of this law. And the last major law is the Republic Act 1378, which is the planning code. It's a law that defines the practice and regulations of planning. So the areas of regulations of planning code is the design and construction of water and sanitation planning systems. The agency responsible for this law is the Department of Public Works and Highway and the local government unit. So these are the three major laws that we have. But on the 16th slide, we're discussing more on the provisions of the presently 856 or the code of sanitation. NHMASHA is the main law or major law that governs the regulations of the water and sanitation. Okay, next slide. Okay, the code of sanitation of the Philippines was enacted in 1975. So under the law, it says 21 chapters and one of the chapters is about water supply or drinking water supply in particular, just in Chapter 2. So under Chapter 2 of the code says that the drinking water quality is conformed to the criteria set by the National Drinking Water Standards. Then the treatment of water shall be in accordance with the prescribed procedures of the Department of Health. Then the initial and periodic examination of drinking water sources shall be required to all. And then the examination of drinking water shall be performed only in laboratories truly accredited by the Department. So those are the general provisions of the law under Chapter 2 of the water supply. To operationalize the provisions of this chapter, the Department of Health issued an implementing rules and regulations, as I said to operationalize the provisions, the general provisions of the code of sanitation. So the implementing rules and regulations cover requirements in relation to source development. This requires a sort of site clearance of the proposed location of a certain source prior to its construction. And then the requirement for initial and operational permits from the Department of Health, again prior to its construction and after its construction, respectively. And then another requirement is a sufficient accountability from the local health office to be secured by the operators of the water supply system to ensure that the quality of the water from the newly constructed water supply system is compliant with the Philippine National Standards for Dinking Water. And then part another requirement under this implementing rules and regulations. Is a requirement for sanitary permits for all water vendors. So water vendors are also regulated by the local government units. And part of the requirements before they would be able to sell their product for drinking water, they are required to secure sanitary permits from the local health office. So to support this implementing rules and regulations, a number of administrative order was also issued also by the Department of Health, as I said to support the implementing rules and regulations. Like administrative order number 22006, that's the 024, is a rules and regulations governing the accreditation of laboratories for drinking water analysis. As mentioned earlier, water examination of drinking water should only be conducted or performed in laboratories newly accredited by the Department of Health. So the details of accreditation contained in the administrative order number 206, that's to the 024. It is the Department of Health, the central office who does the accreditation of the testing laboratories. Then another administrative order is AO 2017 just 010 entitled the Philippine National Standards for Drinking Water. So the Philippine National Standards for Drinking Water provides the standard parameters and values for drinking water quality as well as standard procedures for treatment as well as standards for analysis and deputations of results of analysis. So this administrative order is the main regulation to ensure that all drinking water providers are compliant with the terms of drinking water quality. Then another administrative order is in relation to the water safety plan to ensure that the drinking water quality is compliant with the standard. The Department of Health issued this administrative order 2014-2027, which is the national policy on water safety plan for all drinking water service providers. So this administrative order requires the mandatory compliance of all drinking water service providers to develop and implement the water safety plan. And this water safety plan shall be subject for review and approval by the Department of Health based on administrative order number 2017 just 06, which is the guideline for the review and approval of the water safety plan for drinking water service providers. So basically these are our rules and regulations in relation to drinking water quality. As I said, the major agency responsible to implement this law is the Department of Health and the local government unit. Next slide please. Okay, so under the law, under the implementing rules and regulations, it also describes all government units to establish a local drinking water quality monitoring surveillance program through a definition of local drinking water quality monitoring committee. So the committee shall oversee the operations of the water supply system and the quality of the water being produced by this water supply system. The members of the committee are the following. Being led by the local health authority or the local chief executive with members from the local health office together with the different offices under the local government unit, like the municipal or city engineering office, the environment and natural resources office. And of course other members of the committee includes the municipal or city councilors members coming from the water service providers, either public or private water service providers and representatives from the Department of Health as well as representatives from non-governmental and the provincial health office. So these are the members of the local drinking water quality monitoring committee pushing charge of implementing the water quality surveillance program at the local level. Next slide. So the surveillance program of the local government unit designed according to the improved framework set by the World Health Organization. I believe you are familiar with this framework, the improved framework for drinking water safety, which was introduced by the World Health Organization in the fourth edition of the WHO guidelines on drinking water quality. So the framework is the component setting the health-based targets. The health-based targets would be based on the health outcomes or based on water quality, performance targets or specified technology targets. So based on these targets, the second component is the availability of a water service provider that implements water safety plans to achieve the health-based targets set by the Department of Health. So to monitor if this water safety plan is only being implemented to achieve the health-based targets, the next component is the presence of an independent surveillance, which is normally being implemented by the local government unit to the local health office. So that's how the local government unit trains their local surveillance program. So next slide. Next slide, please. In terms of sanitation regulations, again, based on the code of sanitation of specifically eight pipes. Chapter 17 of the code is under serious collection, disposal, a scritta and disposal. It provides that the approval of the Secretary of Health or his newly authorized representative is required on the following and the following matters. First, the construction of any approved type of toilet for every house, including community toilets, which may be allowed for a group or small houses and light materials or temporary in nature. Second, plans of individual sewage disposal system and the sub-surface absorption system or other treatment device. Third, location of any toilet or sewage disposal system in relation to a source of water supply. And then for manufacture of septic tanks, methods of disposal of sludge from septic tanks or other treatment plants, as well as the plants design data in specifications of a new or existing sewage system or sewage treatment plant and the discharge of treatment aprons of septic tanks and or sewage treatment plants to body support them. So all of this subject for approval of the Secretary of Health or his newly authorized representative. To implement or to operationalize these provisions of the law, the code, again the Department of Health issues and implementing rules and regulations. This provides the detailed procedures and practices to, as I said, to operationalize the general approvision of Chapter 17 of the Code and Sanitation. So under this implementing rules and regulations, it provides those standards as well as requirements in relation to on-site sanitation, approved on-site sanitation such as septic tank system, sanitary previous and other emerging sanitation technology, on-site sanitation technology. Similarly, there are standard requirements for off-site sanitation like sewage management as well as septic or physical sludge management. So for this under this implementing rules and regulations, there are permits, as Lira said, that are required to be secured by the operator prior to their construction. So among these permits includes, among these permits includes the following. They are required to secure an environmental clearance from the Department of Health to ensure that the operator, the design of the treatment facilities are in accordance with the rules and regulations of the Department of Health. And then prior to the operations of these facilities, they are required to secure an operational permit again from the Department of Health. Similarly, prior to their operations, they are also required to secure sanitary permits from the local health office. Then another type of permit is the sanitation technology verification clearance, which is applicable for those newly or emerging type of technology that will be made available to public. Okay. So then again, to support this implementing rules and regulations, the Department of Health also issued an abusive order, number 2019-047, dated October 29, 2019, which is the national standard under design, construction, operations and maintenance of the septic dam system, inasmuch as the most common type of treatment, sewage system in the Philippines is septic dam. So that's the main reason why we have to issue this abusive order number 2019-047. So basically, these are the rules and regulations of the Department of Health in relation to sanitation regulations. So next slide. Can you speed up a little bit, please? Okay. Yes. So our laws are not perfect. So we have a lot of issues or challenges in relation to the implementation or enforcement, and some of which are the following. So our law is outdated. It was created or formulated in 1975, and being old, some of the provisions are incoherent with other provisions of new laws that we have. And one issue is that there's no penalty provisions. Then another issue, there's an overlap of functions of our government officers in relation also to the different provisions of other laws. There's a rapid turnover of sanitation personnel of the local government, so it is sensible to enforce the provisions of the law. There's a lack of an adequate number of qualified or trained sanitation personnel at the local level. And with that, there's a poor understanding on the existing law. Another issue is the no standard educational requirements for the hiring of sanitation spectrum decisions. Then of course, under the law, there is no free power given to the sanitation sector, which hindered the implementation of the law. And then the other issue is that there's an adequate access to water laboratory facilities to monitor the water quality at the local level. And lastly, the last issue is that the lack of appropriate sanitation facilities for different located areas, differently located areas. So I think that's all for my presentation. Thank you very much. Back to you Robert. Thank you very much closely. Don't worry very interesting overview of the framework in the legal framework in the Philippines which obviously is very solid and very comprehensive. You pointed out to some of the issues that make up the code of sanitation when it comes to drinking water, including accreditation of laboratories national standard setting. The application of water safety planning throughout and also the guidelines for auditing water safety plans. And in the area of sanitation you pointed very rightly to the need to cover both offsite and onsite sanitation. And of course in your in your final slide you pointed to the need for regular updating of the law. It's very nice to have a law but it's even better if it can be regularly updated to meet new needs and requirements. The need for clear roles and responsibilities not only within the law but also in the context of broader story for the clock with various which are the many blocks here. Clear roles and responsibilities and also the turnover and shortage of staff to actually man or all the needs that that have to be complied with under the law. So we'll come back to some of these issues in the discussion well doubts. I would now like to move on to David come live in South Australia. David, please give us your reflections on the experience you have with regulation in your part of the world. Thank you Robert. The presentation will dovetail read very well into the presentation that Tom gave earlier. So Tom spoke about water resource legislation in Australia. I'm going to speak quite specifically about drinking water regulations and sanitation. So just to set the scene. We have five major cities and three smaller cities. And about 70% of our population lives on the coast in those colored sections on the map. The interior parts of Australia. A large percentage is desert. The population density, less than one person per 10 square kilometers. So that represents a great challenge to us. 93% of the population uses mains water. A slightly higher percentage than that actually receive mains water. Some people choose to drink water supplied from rainwater tanks. There's a history of use of rainwater tanks in Australia, particularly in our rural areas where over 75% of houses have a rainwater tank. And in total 10% of drinking water supply in Australia comes from rainwater tanks. 88% of the population is connected to public wastewater systems. And the others are served by on-site systems. An important aspect of regulation in Australia is that regulation is a state and territory issue. It wouldn't have a federated country if the states weren't given responsibility for certain activities. And water and sanitation included in those activities. Regulation though is supported by a range of national guidelines. So for example the Australian drinking water guidelines. And we have national policies and standards. And we've already heard discussion in the Philippines about plumbing codes. We have the same, the national construction and plumbing codes. And these are embedded in legislation. All of these national documents are developed in consultation with the states and territories at a very high level, at a ministerial level. So that ensures that all the states support and use those national documents. So we have a very consistent application of for example the Australian drinking water guidelines, which we use to define the safety of drinking water. And which we reference in our drinking water legislation. We have further support from national organisations and bodies, such as the Water Quality Expert Reference Panel, which includes representatives from all states and territory public health agencies. And we're fortunate we have a limited number of states and territories. So we get along pretty well and we work well together. So this is just an example of some of the documents that we use. So on the far left hand side of the Australian drinking water guidelines, it says 2011. But in the fine print, you might be able to read that was last updated in September 2022, the National Plumbing Code of Australia. We have Australian standards. So we have an Australian standard. The one I've shown is for on-site domestic wastewater treatment units, and in particular secondary treatment systems. We also have their own codes and guidelines to support implementation of legislation. So on the right hand side, I've got two codes from my own state of South Australia. An on-site wastewater systems code and a community wastewater management systems code. And I'll get back to sanitation in a few minutes. I could have the next slide please. So we've got the regulations. They're relatively new in Australia, so they're newer than the Philippines' legislation. The first regulations were introduced in 2003 in Victoria. And they were introduced, all of this legislation was introduced during the Millennium Drought. And the reason for introducing the legislation was to provide guidance on the requirements for producing safe drinking water. And also to provide direction on how safety will be measured and how it will be measured by the regulators. Importantly, our regulations provide a level playing field for all types of drinking water providers. And Tom referred to whether you have legislation for government agencies or private individuals, private operators. Our legislation applies to everybody. Most of our big drinking water providers are government-owned, but a lot of the smaller ones can be private. So South Australia, my state, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland have legislation that applies to drinking water safety. Other jurisdictions have policies and agreements between health agencies and drinking water suppliers on what's required. In most cases, the health department is the lead regulator. The scope of the legislation can vary a little. So in South Australia and New South Wales, we regulate all public water supplies. And a public water supply is one that involves two buildings. So we don't regulate private homes that have got an individual supply, but all public supplies are regulated. And that includes urban centres, community water supplies, Indigenous communities, water carters, schools, tourist facilities, health facilities. We have a number of hospitals that provide rainwater for their patients, particularly in country areas because country folk like drinking rainwater. And for food producers. So our drinking water regulations are designed specifically to be consistent with our food legislation because production of safe food requires safe drinking water. So the common features of regulations, policies and agreements, recognition of the Australian drinking water guidelines. We refer back to that key national document. Requirement for risk management plans, which are embedded in the guidelines. So they're the Australian version of water safety plans, auditing and inspecting of supplies, testing and reporting. So we require drinking water providers to monitor and in our case to submit their monitoring plans and we require that they report their results to us. And when asked, they report to the communities as well. And we include instant notification procedures. So notification if something goes wrong. And that's the duty of the provider to notify the regulator, the health department. One key feature of our regulations of our legislation is that they do not take a standard based approach. They do not include a list of standards. What we do as I've mentioned a moment ago is we refer back to the Australian drinking water guidelines, which have all the guideline values in them. So rather than producing a list of rigid standards, we refer back to the guidelines. Now that works for us. We've got a very limited number of jurisdictions, you know, seven or eight. And it gives us flexibility. It won't work everywhere, but for us it does. So that was drinking water. And drinking water is reasonably, I think it's reasonably straightforward. Our legislation is fairly consistent. And as I said, typically led by health departments. Sanitation is a little bit more complicated. Firstly, there is a general requirement that all development incorporating residential and community use requires installation and operation of appropriate sanitation facilities. And sanitation can take three basic forms. Firstly, the large wastewater treatment plants that you see in large urban centres and capital cities in Australia. They're typically operated by a government owned water utilities or local government in larger urban centres. And the wastewater treatment plants treat sewage delivered by typical sewage systems. Then there are community wastewater treatment plants typically operated by local government. They're a little smaller. Again, include some type of sewage system. And then finally, on-site wastewater systems operated by businesses, tourist facilities and householders. So wastewater regulation. The administration of regulations does vary between jurisdictions, between the states and territories. It can include health departments with the assistance of local government. Or it can be led by environment protection agencies. Or housing departments in one case, a housing and construction department. We tell the tension in our cases applied to on-site systems in all jurisdictions. We have quite specific processes for approval of treatment devices. So septic tanks or aerobic wastewater treatment systems. And those approvals are issued to manufacturers. So they submit the design of their system and they can get approval on a state basis. And if they're approved, then they're allowed to be installed. And we have processes for installation of treatment systems that are issued to landholders. And as I mentioned before, we have Australian standards that describe treatment requirements. Most jurisdictions also have jurisprudence codes of practice of the type that I showed earlier. Our larger treatment plants are typically licensed by EPAs with controls applied to effluent discharges. So this brings in both the health and the environmental aspects of controlling wastewater treatment. Health departments could also apply discharge limits and require reporting of long compliance. Tom earlier mentioned that we're seeing increased use of wastewater recycling. So we're seeing increased beneficial use of treated wastewater. And again, that's subject to compliance with another set of Australian guidelines. The Australian guidelines for water recycling and recycled water schemes also require regulatory approval. So in summary, regulation of drinking water quality in Australia and regulation of sanitation is achieved by a combination of state and territory based legislation and codes of practice. We have national guidelines and standards that support consistency. Regulation of drinking water is relatively recent with the first legislation developed 20 years ago. Wastewater and sanitation legislation is older than that. So in the 80s, 90s, we have a broad range of that legislation, which ranges from a prescriptive approach for on site systems to licensing systems for our larger wastewater treatment plants. And with wastewater, we have a stronger involvement of environment protection agencies than we do with drinking water. Our challenges, our principal challenges remain particularly in remote areas, but progress is being made. It takes several days to get to the centre of Australia if you're driving from Adelaide. So that presents difficulties and challenges for us. But we're working to meet those challenges and to improve drinking water across Australia. And lastly, last slide. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you very much, David, for this very interesting overview of how things work legally and policy-wise and regulatory in Australia in your state. And I think that the issue that you have for consistency, you know, you set your policy and legal frameworks at the federal level. But then you have the operational part at state level is very much relevant to the Vietnamese situation also because I know that in Vietnam with 63 provinces and cities under the government. There's also a great deal of decentralization of operational issues. Now I think I would like to hand over to Professor Viet and to introduce the next speaker. Thank you to the three speakers and thank you, Robert. Now we come to the Vietnam presentation. The representative of the technical infrastructure department, Mr. Nguyen Minh Duc from the administration of technical infrastructure of the MOC will share the Vietnam perspective on water and sanitation law. Hello everybody. My name is Nguyen Minh Duc from the ATI of the MOC. I'd like to talk about Vietnamese perspective on water and sanitation law. And at the moment the government assigns us to develop the law from 2023 to 2025 for the law to be issued in Vietnam. Vietnam is rather slow in legislation development in comparison with other countries in Vietnam. The water and sanitation law is also slower than other laws in Vietnam. So the task is very urgent. There are three parts in my presentation. Next slide. First is a summary of the law enforcement in terms of water supply and sewage field. Objective viewpoint requirement and then policies. Next slide. We have now 2,250 enterprises operating 750 facilities with the capacity of 11 million cubic meters day and night. For water sewage and wastewater treatment, we have around 82 facilities for wastewater treatment. 10% of wastewater. At the moment, for Vietnam, for water supply and sewage, there are two degrees on water supply and one degree on wastewater treatment and water sewage. There are different laws like the law on water resources, the law on environmental protection and the law on construction and the planning law. For water supply and sewage, we haven't got the content related to operation management, service quality management. Our future law, we base on the gaps in these laws and there are also the requirements for management. If we see any gap in other law, we will fill this gap in this new law. We want to propose five policies. Next slide please. The first one is synchronous management of water supply and sewage drainage. So for this policy group number one, we have some requirements or regulation in the law on basic investigation, orientation, planning, database. And the second point is about planning, planning of water supply and sewage system is integrated in the provincial master plan. The master plans we already have, but the content on water supply and sewage is very, is very vague. Over the past time, in terms of planning, in terms of mobilizing the private people to participate in investment, we have a lot of, we also have to invest in the larger scale system. Next in relation to investment in water supply and sewage system. We have investment law, law on enterprises and would like to refer to the support of investment related to the investment in the decentralized system or the wastewater treatment facilities on site. The second policy is about management and operation of water supply and sewage works. So it is related to the selection of investment owners in terms of water supply and water drainage. At the moment, we also have a difficulties in developing larger scale facilities to supply water in city and rural area. We need to have the principle in the law for that. And second for the management operation of the facilities. It is related to application of IT and also the recycling of brain water, wastewater and flood control regulation. So that is for policy group two. Next slide. Policy group number three related to management of water supply and sewage services. It is related to the quality of service. The quality of service need to be related to the safe water supply and water drainage. And also we have the regulation of relationship among the local government enterprises and people to harmonize benefits. And at the same time these regulations are related to some conditional businesses managing the output quality. The Ministry of Health manage the water quality, Ministry of Environment manages the water discharge quality. The fourth policy group, next slide, policy group number four on finance in water supply and sewage. For rural far flung areas, there needs to be support of the state. And there needs to be the investment by the state. So that we can develop the facilities to increase the wastewater treatment from 15% to 75% according to our direction. There are policies related to creating the larger scale water supply facilities. And we need to have a common water tariff applied in both city and rural area. The state budget is now investing in the water supply and water drainage facilities. And we still have a limited budget for water drainage. So we need to enhance the responsibility of the people. They have to cover the wastewater treatment cost. So they need to be pushed up so that we can mobilize in this area. The next one is related to state management. There is decentralization to different agencies enhancing the power of the local government to enhance monitoring and supervision in relation to ensuring the water supply security and safety. There are some regulations in terms of the licensing of the local government in water supply and drainage. There are regulations on dealing with violations in water supply. So here are the five different policy groups in the future law on water and sanitation that we are developing. So in order to meet the requirements of the country and in order to share and learn from experiences of other countries that go ahead of us, we have a complete our laws and regulations. Next slide. For example, we need to develop, should we develop separate law on water supply or a common law for both water supply and water drainage or sewage and the scope and subject of the law, whether it includes everything from basic investigation to planning, investment operation, management of services or just a part of these topics. And secondly, we would like to learn from experience in mobilizing investment resources for water supply, drainage, sewage and wastewater treatment. We are having difficulty in mobilizing investment because investment is usually large. There needs to be policy to focus resources. Third is we want to learn from experience in managing developing larger scale water supply. We will give support in terms of investment for the rural facilities. Nowadays, we have a too many decentralized system because of socialization process, because economic conditions over the past time are not very favorable. So there is a fragmented investment from companies. We may have a better capacity for investment, but there are barriers in terms of the legal system and because of the existing fragmented system, they cannot make new investments so we want to learn from other countries experience. We will have a concentrated facility in urban area, but in rural area we may still have to maintain fragmented decentralized system. And the next issue is the international experience on clean water tariff, wastewater treatment tariff, ability to recover enough costs and reinvestment. We also have the role of the government and we also have the final issue that we want to propose is that we want to look at the draft law on water supply and water drainage and water sewage of other countries in English. If you have an English version of your law, you can send it to us and then we can talk about, we can learn from your experience. So these are some of the basic content. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for this, Professor Vietnam would you like to thank you, Robert, you have just listened to the presentation which are short concise with useful information. And before we have a Q&A session, we would like to invite the representative of VWSA and ATI representative. Each of you will talk about, we will talk in 2 to 3 minutes, maybe to ask questions to the speakers of today's webinar and also to provide them with more information and also to make clear what we will need in the coming time so that we can have the plan for collaboration. So first of all, I would like to invite Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Diep, the president of Vietnam Association. Ladies and gentlemen, VWSA would like to thank IWA and the speakers for participating in this webinar with high quality presentations in the context of Vietnam. The state is trying to complete the policies and mechanisms, regulations, especially in terms of urban infrastructure with the urbanization rate of 1% per year. The number of people in urban areas is increasing. The urbanization industrialization process in Vietnam is very strong, the need for domestic use for service for industry is increasing, requiring the better system of wastewater collection and treatment. The legal documents of Vietnam on water supply and drainage are not very much equivalent to the actual needs. Previously, we only have a decrease of the government and now we need to legalize this decrease into laws or into the codes to be approved by the National Assembly of Vietnam in 2025. MOC is an agency assigned to develop this law and we also have a lot of difficulties and confusion because developing a law in the context as Mr. Duc has mentioned, we have a lot of overlapping legal documents in other countries. The water law is related to water resources to the territory management, but in Vietnam one ministry is in charge of water resources, one ministry is in charge of other water issues. This law is about water supply and sewage for urban and rural areas. We are collaborating with different ministries to come up with the most suitable content in the current context because we have said that the laws and regulations need to be in line with the reality. So through the presentation, we would like to raise a following question. So in terms of the experience of other countries, whether or not you separate water supply into one law and water sewage into another law or you combine water supply and water sewage into one single law. That is the first question. The second question whether the law mentioned the model, water business model, for example, because in Vietnam there are two different viewpoints. So in other countries, whether the asset of the water supply belong to the state in Vietnam, we have two parallel models. The first one is a state established, the one member liability limited company. And the second model is the facility invested in by the private sector. Each model has its own pros and cons that need to be analyzed. So in the law whether or not it touch upon the organizational model of the state owned companies that run the water facilities. And the third question, water supply and sewage is a special issue. So whether or not as a water law, your water law mentioned the planning issue in Vietnam, we have investment law, planning law, procurement law for different sectors of the economy. However, for water supply and sewage, it is difficult to commonly apply this law. So should we have the planning document for the water, because water is a very special thing that it need to be separated from other things. So if you want to share your experience on that, I like to thank the international export for supporting Vietnam to learn from experiences from the war. Thank you Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Diep. Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Diep have already summarized the challenges, the requirements. And also he delivered a message and question to IWA who we want to collaborate in the coming time. And next slide to invite Mr. Ta Quang Vinh, Director of the IIT, to make some comments and question. Mr. Vinh representative of IWA, VWA and WHO. ATI is very honored to participate in this webinar with international organization on behalf of the leaders of the ATI. I'd like to thank you very much. And as you all know, we have listened to different presentation. The ATI is assigned to develop the water supply and sewage law. And Mr. Duc have already made a presentation on the process of developing the law. We need to make clear a lot of points in this law. And we hope that IWA and the international organization can share with us your experience and it will continue to support us in the future. So that we can complete our political task assigned by the government. We very much need the international experiences. We have a degree 80 and degree 117. But the sanctions under these two degrees are not very clear for the local level to implement. Sometimes there are also loopholes in the law. For example, whether we provide law for consumption, do we provide water for consumption or water for production, whether we should treat them differently. Or whether or not we should use the clean water or domestic water. So there are a lot of issues to be resolved. Whether or not we need to refer to the water supply law or water drainage law or we combine into water supply and drainage law. Whether or not it is related to the land price. Water supply facility need to take into account the land price. So these things need to be concretized. Not about the water tariff, whether it need to be issued by the investor or by the people's committee. At the moment it is issued by the people's committee. Whether or not we should clarify it in the law and how. And whether or not we should use the environmental protection fee to assist water treatment. So these are overlapping and concerning issues. What about equitization of water supply companies. So whether or not they follow the conditional business model. And what about the organizational model of water drainage company or water supply company. Whether we need to ensure that there is one consistent organizational structure or we need to just give them the discretion to decide. There are some other things for example, safe water supply. Asset management, what to manage, how to manage. So the government have ahead the regulations. The rural water supply is managed by one agency, industrial water is managed by the MOC for example. So these are many things in which we need international experiences and VWA would like to collaborate with IWA to learn from these experiences. So we also have a safety and security of water facilities. Whether the sanctions need to be mentioned in the law and what is the level of the sanction to be handled by the law. So it leads to the in terms of the policy. How to manage water supply and water sewage facility financing state management issues. So through the presentation by Mr. We still have a lot of issues. We still lack information international experiences on this issue. We very much need the experience from Australian Water Association, IWA, the IWA. We are willing to collaborate with the water associations of other countries at an international level. And we hope that it will continue to support our ATI. So that we have a better result in our work. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Ta Quang Vinh. We have mentioned a series of issues to be discussed. So now we would like to invite the speakers to share the feedback to the question from Vietnam. Mr. Robot first. Okay, thank you Professor Vietnam. I think that this was a very interesting addition to the presentation that Mr. Duque from the colleagues in FIWSA and ATI. Basically they almost set the agenda for a series of webinars that we'll have to do because there's a long list of issues that you would like to discuss in detail obviously. And I'm sure that in the region where you are, there are other countries that will be able to share their experiences on any of these issues and guide you. I would like to first go back to what Tom Molenkopf said at the very beginning, that any legislation should be simple and clear. And I think that by starting this law on drinking water supply and sewage, that you have to keep in mind all the time. You're not trying to aim for getting the perfect law by 2025 but it would be great if you would have a simple and clear framework for this law by 2025. And the framework will never be finished because the law will always have to be modified adapted. It will evolve meeting new requirements etc. So it is important that you have the basis, which is simple and clear. And the other point I would like to bring in is what David kind of said about flexibility. The point in putting these standards and norms as a very carved in stone issue into the laws so that you don't that you have to comply with them. It's better to work with the guidelines approach based on the law that gives you the flexibility to adapt. We all know that as the world is evolving and as climate change is becoming more and more important adaptation is a critical issue to so adapting the standards and norms to new situations is a very critical point as well. Now, we have heard so many suggestions or what to discuss and I've just made a list but I would like to first of all introduce the other panelists that are there which we haven't heard of yet, and also give them an opportunity to give their perspective. So we have Suraya Hussein from the National Water Services Commission spun in Malaysia, which is the Malaysian drinking water regulator. And then we also have Mr. Tontuan Gia, who is the National Environmental Health Advisor in the WHO office in Hanoi. I would like to give them an opportunity to briefly very briefly give some of their immediate reactions and perspectives and and share some of their relevant experiences from their background so Suraya if you could please give us maximum three minutes of your time to tell us about your, your experience in Malaysia. Hello. Can you hear me. Yes. Okay, so thank you, Mr. Robert boss. Okay, so basically our. My name is Suraya I'm from the National Water Services Commission abbreviation is spent. Yeah. Here, we are the regulators for the water services industry. One of the issues that we have here is the main issue will be different parties having different jurisdiction over various aspects of water span regulates the water services industry. Water services here refers to water supply services, as well as sewage services. We do not have jurisdiction over water resources. The resources come under the jurisdiction of state government span is a federal agency. And then we, we have a department of irrigation and drainage regulating drainage aspect and then that this department of environment regulating environmental issues and then we also have other various other agencies regulating free water and stuff like that so you see there are a lot of other parties regulating different aspects of this water so we do have issues in in in coordinating actions and because of all these parties having powers, having different powers. So there are loopholes in the law and they are also overlapping in laws, you know, with that there is state versus federal powers. Of course, we need to work closely with the state government because they have the power over water resources. Also, the conflicts often arise in terms of particularly when there are issues of pollution and stuff like that and which affects water supply system. So, these are one of the key issues that we face here in Malaysia. Other than that, in terms of sanitation or sewage, we have our, our coverage here is quite big and quite massive, I think about 70% 80% also provided with sewage services. We do have the old system still like septic tanks and stuff and some of the issues in sewage sector is that the old septic tanks tend to not be maintained properly and causes environmental issues and so we have a lot of challenges in dealing with this and trying to get consumers to to convert their septic tanks and have to connect to a public system instead. So we're trying to in places where they are public sewage system available, we would want premises to be connected rather than having their sewage tended to by way of septic tank so it's a massive undertaking trying to get the public to change their septic tank and revert to convert to public systems instead. And, and also where we have recently introduced a law on a subsidiary legislation on dislodging of septic tanks in 2021, we, we, we decided this new law where we require all premises with septic tanks to, to have the tanks dislodge regularly. In urban areas they have to carry out dislodging in every 24 months and in rural areas every 36 months. Of course this was not met with open arms by everybody, particularly in the rural areas. Yeah, because you know dislodging services tend to be costly. Yeah. So, you know, so in requiring it every three years for rural areas can be seen as a little bit harsh, but you know this is necessary in order to prevent environmental issues and whatnot, but So, can I just interrupt you there, because we need to move on but there were two things that you mentioned which I would like you to quickly clarify. One is you mentioned this issue of different laws coming under mandates of different ministries and institutions and the issues of coordination, sometimes even conflict resolution that is needed. And the loopholes and the gaps that may be there because of laws under different ministries not overlapping or not being harmonized. Do you have and this came up in the in the presentation from Vietnam also as an issue. Do you have a mechanism to deal with these institutional arrangements or rather the lack of institutional arrangements is there an overarching body where all these institutions come together. Most of all, this are all like some of these agencies are under the same ministry, like the Department of Environment and Department of Drainage and Irrigation. It's under the same ministry as as department of as the what they call department of water for the span is under the water sector ministry. So we, we can harmonize our laws through the minister at the ministerial level. You know, it's the same ministry so I can call interdepartmental meetings and harmonize it. The difficulty usually with the state government because they are different federal government and state government so that's the difficulty but even so meetings and through meetings and discussions and consultations. Things are normally sorted out. Issues are normally when they are pollution issues that cost us a bit of problem because you know nobody wants to be responsible for that. You know, but other than that. Yeah, it can be worked out. Okay. Good. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr Nagia, could I ask you also to give no more than three minutes your, your perspectives on this from the WHO office in Hanoi's outlook on things. Thank you very much. And good afternoon, our participants. On behalf of WHO in Vietnam, I want to come to the idea that initiatives and cooperation between IWA and VWSA for this organizing this webinar. As you know that WHO in Vietnam has been supporting Vietnam to apply water safety plan for 16 years. Our final target is to institutionalize water safety plan in Vietnam under the law. So it's a highlight high tide for Vietnam to develop the law on drinking water and also sanitation. In order to institutionalize water safety plan in our opinion, it's necessary to clearly state regulation as mandatory for water supply for water safety to protect public health by practicing risk management in the whole production of water. And also we should clearly stipulate the rules and functional and functions of relevant ministries, stakeholders, local governments and water suppliers. And we should clearly stipulate mechanism for financing water safety plan, encouraging investment and also like setting up appropriate water tariff. And in our process of development of the law, we should clearly defy regulation on auditing water safety plan as the tool to ensure sustainability of water safety plan. As we get the experience from Australia and the Philippines auditing and surveillance of water quality is already clearly mentioned in the law. And finally we need to stipulate accreditation of the water safety plan in the law if possible. Regarding sanitation safety plan, WHO recommends that sanitation safety plan to be included in the law. And right now Vietnam doesn't have any national guidelines on sanitation safety plan. So WHO is willing to work with ATI to develop these guidelines as a reference for the national law or law on drinking water and sanitation. And finally we should, I would like to emphasize that Vietnam only can meet the SDG6 if water safety plan and sanitation safety plan are included into the law. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Gia. So now we have a full picture of what everybody has been trying to contribute to this discussion. And we can maybe go to see some of the questions that were raised by our Vietnamese colleagues and I think the question that it seems to be on top because it came out in the presentation but also in the comments made by the WSA and the ATI colleagues is do we require one single law dealing with drinking water supply and with sanitation or sewerage if you want. And that's another issue that may be open for discussion what is the right terminology are we talking only about sewerage which seems to be an urban focus, or are we talking about sanitation and include also the rural areas. And, or should we have two separate laws one on drinking water supply and one on sanitation or sewerage. I'm personally always of the opinion that the fact that we put water and sanitation together has been to the detriment of sanitation because there's always been more interest and investment in drinking water supply. There has been in sanitation services. And of course even in the human rights context, the first adoption in 2010 of the human rights was as a single entity, what human rights to save drinking water and sanitation. But in 2015 it was decided to separate those two and have a separate human right on drinking water and a separate human right on sanitation. So that's really an open question that I'd like to see some comments from the panelists, the speakers and the other panelists on this question of one or two laws. Who would raise his hands to comment on that, not many people David, can I just push you and see what you're yeah your hand is up also so that's good. From our perspective it's needed to have them separate. So we have quite concise they've drinking water acts and very specific sanitation wastewater guidelines. We, they do involve some crossover in terms of who we regulate because large wastewater treatment systems are operated by our drinking water providers are what are utilities but we also have quite separate providers particularly the at the small end. So I mentioned that we covered all drinking water supplies, including water carters, tourist facilities, food production. So they can be quite unique and at the wastewater side, but particularly on the onsite site that's a very specific industry. So for us it's neater to have the Safe Drinking Water Act as a separate entity and the wastewater and sanitation as the second entity. And with that then with the wastewater you can include both the urban and the rural, both the wastewater and the onsite in the in in that piece of legislation so that's that's how it works for us. Okay, thanks. Jose Lito in the Philippines, you have this one act, it's the code on sanitation and then it covers both water supply and sanitation under one umbrella but still, as you explained quite dealt with in practical terms quite separately how do you see this question is it a real question that we should separate it or keep it together or is it is it is it for the operational part is not really relevant, whether it's a separate or single loan specific for drinking water and specific for sanitation. Okay, yes because in the end of course it's all part of the water cycle and poor sanitation then results in pollution of source water for drinking water and then it goes into the cycle from another angle so there is as David also said there's definitely of course a close linkage between the two but Surya in Malaysia do you have legislation that is separate for drinking water supply and for sewerage and sanitation or does it all come under one law. It's all under one law, we have this water, water services industry act, which caters to both water supply as well as sewerage services. It's one, one statute that covers both, but under it we have various subsidiary legislation, which caters specifically to water supply alone or to sewerage services alone. So, while we have this parent act that covers both, but the subsidiary legislations are all separate. But in the Malaysian experience it works, it works and at the end of the day it's all about water, whether clean water or drinking water, it's all water, what you drink comes out. So, you know, it's all part of the same cycle so it's best if, in my opinion, it's best if you have one single law on water supply and sewerage as well. And would you then call it sewerage or would you call it sanitation because sewerage seems to exclude the rural sanitation. We use the term water services. Okay, so water services comprised of water supply as well as sewerage services and wastewater services or not. Okay. Okay. Maybe to go to our Vietnamese colleagues, now that you've heard these reactions from the panel, are there any questions or issues that you would like to bring up in this discussion on the structure of the law. President of VWSA, I would like to raise some opinions. Thank you to the national experts for sharing experiences. We are learning from you. For Vietnam, in the context of Vietnam, water supply is invested by the state and water supply companies are operating efficiently. But for sewage, it is not yet paid new attention to. Now, now that we can treat only 15% of wastewater. So it is an area with insufficient and weak investment in Vietnam. Malaysia idea is also very interesting. We can put it in a law, but the separate guidelines for each topic. So it is also an opportunity for water supply and water sewage to collaborate with each other to implement one law. So in the next five years, if we implement the joint law efficiently and then we can separate it into two different laws later. Thank you. Thank you very much. We would like also to make clear. Yeah, Robert, give him one minute before he hand over to you. Is that okay, Robert? I don't think we should be closing yet. I mean, it's almost 12, but we can take two more minutes. We totally agree with the speakers and experts. It depends on the context of each country. The ultimate goal is the law have to provide the best water supply and sanitation services for the people to protect the health of the people and then protect the environment and then to improve the quality of life. In US or in Japan, they have the water law since 1973 in Australia when we have a highly developed system with the nearly 100% of wastewater collected. It's maybe easier to separate water supply and water sewage in the Philippines. There is just one law called sanitation law and the sanitation law also have a chapter on water supply in Vietnam. We agree with Mr. Diep that around 20 years ago when we talked about a separate water supply law, it is more suitable. But now if we separate, it is too early compared to Australia in Vietnam. We need to combine both supply and sewage. And then we can improve the sewage sanitation part to be as good as the water supply to protect the health of the people. That's not to mention recycling of wastewater or recovery of natural resources. So the law need to include both water supply and water sewage. Otherwise, Vietnam will be slow in meeting the commitments under SDG 6. That's just my additional comment. We still have a lot of questions to ask as Mr. Diep, Mr. Vinh have a listed. So on Vietnam side, we hope that this is just one of the activities that we can do jointly together. And we hope that together with the IWA, we can have more opportunities for more in-depth discussion. This webinar is a general one, but the later webinars can be more in-depth, touch on different specific topics like water supply, participation of the private sector, finance for the water sector, concentrated on these centralized water facilities. So this will be the separate topic for separate webinars later. Thank you, Professor Vietnam. I think that, yes, it is time. I would still like to push you maybe five minutes more to just address one other issue that came out. But the one thing that came out of this last round was I think that in the development of these laws, it's always important to keep the water cycle as the central concept. And that is on the one hand, the small water cycle, the whole issue of drinking water and sanitation in the urban and rural settings. And then of course the big water cycle, which is the older water users and the water resources and the water users for irrigation, etc. That needs to be harmonized with other legislation that exists in those areas. And one super-fast round of questions to the panelists that are there, because we, one key question that was also one of these was about investment planning. And I would just like to quickly ask everybody in your legislation in Malaysia, in Australia and in the Philippines, is there any reference in that legislation to investment planning? Or is that a totally separate area from the specific water legislation that you have in your countries? Nothing in legislation about investment planning. We do have, going back to the point raised by Vietnam, we do have price control for drinking water. So we have economic regulation of our major license drinking water provider. So that's under a different department. And as a health department, we stay out of that. We're interested in the public health aspects of drinking water. We're interested in the public health aspects of wastewater. We let others handle the economic side. They're the economists. Okay, that's clear. In the Philippines? In the Philippines, there's nothing about investment planning and the depot sanitation. But in terms of the water code of the Philippines, as much as deals with the resource and economic regulation, I think there's such provisions in relation to investment planning as part of the requirement to the water service providers. Okay, thank you very much. And Suraya in Malaysia, anything on investment and planning for investment into the CapEx part of the whole story? For water supply services, we have a government owned company, Water Asset Management Corporation, which manages water assets. They invest in building water treatment plants and then lease or transfer it to the care and operation of the water operators. So all the water assets ideally shall be vested with this company to handle. So that is part of the government's module on investment planning for water supply services. Good. Thank you very much. Okay, I think that we've come to the end of this webinar. As Professor Vietan already said, this is only the beginning because there are very many specific issues that we may want to go in depth on. But I want to just thank all of you, the speakers and the panelists, and the backup team who was behind getting this webinar of the ground in making it a successful event, I think, and a very good start for ongoing discussions. And I now would like to just draw your attention to some of the other upcoming IWA webinars that you want to maybe involved in advanced control systems for nitrogen removal and false scale water facilities. Nitrogen is an important issue in many politically very sensitive in many parts of the world these days. So that's an important point and embracing indigenous perspectives to achieve sustainable development goals is another webinar. First one is on 26 July the other on 9 August all the information is on the IWA website. And then of course again draw attention to the Water and Development Congress and exhibition which will be in Kigali Rwanda in Central Africa, 10 to 14 December, where we'll have an international regulators forum that will address a number of hot topics. We also have a workshop on the links between regulation and the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation. And I think that there will also be a meeting of the regulators network of WHO back to back with this conference. And with that information, I think, I would just like to say, please consider connecting up to IWA if you aren't already and, and become a member and, and, and participate in not only these activities like you've just had, but also in the specialist IWA, which deal with very specific issues. I just went myself to the health related water microbiology, specialist groups in possemen Darwin in Australia months ago. And these are places where you meet your peers and your, and your colleagues and where you get updated about the latest developments in your field. And with that, I would like to thank all of you, including also my co-moderator Professor Vietnam I don't know whether you have one final word to say Professor Vietnam before we close up. Not really. Okay, all well. Then, thank you all for your attention. Thank you all for your participation. I wish you a very good evening afternoon or rest of the day. All the best, and thanks a lot and see you next time. Thank you.