Water

NARBO Benchmarking Program
Small Scoping Workshop

12-13 October 2004
Jakarta, Indonesia

Highlights

Fifteen participants attended the workshop, including river basin managers from river basin organizations (RBOs) in Japan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, and knowledge partners from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Southeast Asia Water Utilities Network (SEAWUN).

CONTENTS Workshop agenda Discussion highlights Field visits

• Setting the context and objectives
• Identifying different approaches to benchmarking
• Proposing the structure of RBO benchmarking system

Two side meetings prior to the workshop were held to discuss the NARBO Action Plan and forthcoming activities.

Top

• The participants adopted this working definition of benchmarking: "a systematic process for securing continual improvement through comparison with relevant and achievable internal or external norms and standards."

• Three concepts on benchmarking were flagged:

1. keep it simple and understandable
2. use peer review process
3. recognize large and small RBOs



• Four approaches to benchmarking were identified:

1. standards benchmarking
2. results benchmarking
3. process benchmarking
4. metric benchmarking.



• Participants agreed on the following vis-à-vis the proposed structure of RBO benchmarking:

1. RBO characterization - will include:
• Objectives
• ownership (government, semi-government, private)
• scope of management
• revenue (service-related, grant/subsidy) " internal organization (#staffs, qualifications)
• basin area
• complexity of basin boundary
• degree of river regulation


2. Benchmarking areas-will include

• international cooperation in shared basins (treaty, data exchange and cooperation, MDGs, water and poverty indicators)

• internal business process or river basin management (basin plan and updates, spatial and temporal allocation plans, stakeholder involvement, alignment between routine operations and plans)

• stakeholders and clients (two-way communication strategy, complaints, customer satisfaction surveys)

• financial performance (cost-recovery, budget sources, staff/revenue ratio)

• learning and growth (human resources development and training, adoption of new technologies, adoption of quality management system and ISO, staff rewards for innovation, research and development investments)

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After the workshop, site visits were made in the areas of operation of Jasa Tirta II:

• Jatiluhur Dam and Power Station
• Curug Weir and Pump Station
• Walahar Barrage