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2nd Southeast Asia Water Forum29 August - 3 September 2005
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| Theme | Managing Water Resources in Growing Cities |
| Session | Catching Up, Keeping Up with Growing Cities |
| Date | 2 September 2005 |
| Time | 8:30 AM - 11:25 NN |
| Venue | Nusantara 1, Bali International Convention Center |
With the influx of migrants rushing into a number of Asian cities, governments are faced with the escalating responsibility to provide basic infrastructure services to a rapidly growing population. For water and sanitation services in particular, the gaps to be filled are great - 700 million people do not have safe drinking water and 2 billion people do not have adequate sanitation in the Asia Pacific Region alone.
For the most part, the operation of water supply and sanitation services is still a government responsibility. Experience shows that most public utilities continue to struggle against the challenge to expand and maintain the system to meet service levels (i.e. 24-hour supply, 100% coverage, etc.) while keeping tariffs affordable especially in light of a growing number of urban poor settlers in these cities.
Clearly adding to the problem is the lack of financial resources to meet this growing requirement. Developing countries simply do not have sufficient internal resources to support infrastructure development. Further complicating the problem is the practice of subsidizing tariffs to ease the burden on consumers, resulting in an unviable system making financing outside of government allocations, very difficult.
At the forefront of these problems are the Governments and operators that have an important role to play in ensuring that the general population is provided with such basic services as water and sanitation. Balancing the interests of people's capacity to pay and ensure sufficient revenues for continued and sustained operations, identifying alternative modes of financing, considering private sector options, and developing a strategy to meet these objectives, are serious challenges faced by Governments.
| 8:30- 9:00 | Opening Program Understanding water services in growing Asian Cities Provide an overview of the general problems faced by growing cities vis-à-vis water and sanitation, and discuss the region's progress in terms of meeting MDGs and ADB's role in assisting Governments to secure the sustainability of urban, rural and basin water. Keynote Speaker: Stephen Curry, Advisor, Office of the Director General
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| 9:00 - 9:45 | Session 1 (Presentations and open forum) Improving water supply and sanitation services Presentations:
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| 9:45 - 9:55 | Break |
| 9:55 - 11:00 |
Session 2 (panel discussion) Financing water supply and sanitation services How do growing cities ensure the viability of their WSS services? Is serving the poor good business? Are PSP arrangements an option? Balancing people's capacity to pay and ensuring efficient service — is this possible? Are subsidies necessary - under what circumstances? Panelists:
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| 11:00 - 11:25 | Synthesis |
K.E. Seetharam
ADB Senior Water Supply and Sanitation Specialist
Phone: +632 6325610
Fax: +632 6362444
E-mail: water@adb.org
Postal address: 6 ADB Avenue, Mandaluyong City, 1550 Metro Manila, Philippines
Mai Flor
Consultant, [Water Governance Specialist]
ADB Manila
Phone: +632-633-4444 local 70161
Fax: +632-636-2444
Email: mmflor@adb.org; maiflor@info.com.ph
Postal address: 6 ADB Avenue, P.O. Box 789, 0980 Manila, Philippines
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