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Pilot and Demonstration Activities
Sustainable Water Integrated Management and Governance for Baguio City

Every summer, tourists flock by the thousands to the mountain resort of Baguio City in Northern Philippines, adding to the city's problem of short freshwater supply. This PDA strengthened the city government's mechanisms for coordinating and managing water resources.

 
PDA SNAPSHOT
Project Site Baguio City, Philippines
Cost Estimate $50,000
Status Completed
Approval Date 2004/07/06
Completion Date 31 August 2005
Category Urban Services
Type Institutional Development
Proponent Florian Steinberg, Southeast Asia Department
Partner ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability
BACKGROUND

Freshwater is a common good, an ecological foundation of life, a finite resource, and a shared common asset. On top of this, access to potable freshwater is a basic right. With urbanization, water governance has become a need to cope with increasing demands for steady supply and access to potable water, both for the immediate and long term. A twin responsibility of urbanized areas is managing water demand and sustaining investments in water infrastructure through viable cost-recovery schemes.

In the Philippines, national institutions usually manage water supply and sanitation. However, local governments still lack the ability to ensure efficient and sustained delivery of basic water services.

This proposed PDA will focus its institutional development interventions in Baguio City, Philippines.1

The city faces problems with unaccounted for water aggravated by the growth of small-scale water suppliers and settlements along watershed areas and presence of minerals that affect water quality.

Attempts at charting directions and investments to efficiently manager the water resources in Baguio City have been initiated. In the regional and provincial plan documents, the role of Baguio City is to protect and preserve watersheds within its territorial jurisdiction. In a separate report containing the urban plan for Baguio, water issues were sketched under the infrastructure component that tackled water supply, surface water sewerage, sanitation, sewerage and sewage disposal.

This PDA hopes to enable Baguio city to shift from fragmented to integrated local water agenda and action, to be catalyzed by an integrated management scheme at the local government level. Specific targets for capacity-building are the city planning and development office as a coordinating and management office of the city government, and the public utilities sector office that manages the water treatment facility.

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OBJECTIVES

General

Strengthen the city government's mechanism for integrating efforts, coordinating and managing water resources and related water operations in the city, and driving the different sectors involved to treat water resource in an integrated manner.

Specific

  • Strengthen the institutional role and capacity of the City Planning and Development Office to
  1. convene and coordinate mandates and actions of key sectors involved in water resource management, regulatory mechanisms, and water supply and use
  2. manage information and track various internal and external interventions and investment options for water resource management
  • Enable the Public Utilities Sector Office of the city government to craft and carry out a cost-recovery plan for its existing water treatment facility financed by a JICA grant
  • Raise stakeholder awareness within the city government towards an integrated management of water resources, and scale-up the lessons learned from this project

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EXPECTED RESULTS
  Outputs     Outcomes     Impacts     Indicators  

  • An Integrated Medium-Term Local Water Operational Plan and Investment Priorities of Baguio City
    1. A checklist of interventions and studies/plan documents
    2. A Water Situationer containing a validated summary of gaps and problems by key stakeholders, based also on existing studies/reports
    3. A description of ongoing interventions and funded projects in the pipeline
    4. A Local Water Operational Action Plan and a Ranking of Priorities
    5. A list of roles and responsibilities of core sectors accepted by the offices involved
    6. A coordination and monitoring scheme that would strengthen the accountability of involved sectors
    7. Sub-committees organized that would set the agendas in motion
    8. A reporting and communication mechanism
  • A Cost-Recovery/Sustainability Plan for the City's Water Treatment Facility
  • Information and Communication Materials that Capture the Lessons Learned from the Project
    1. 1 Case description
    2. regular updates/2 progress reports
    3. 3 reports to ADB (1 inception report during the 1st month containing a detailed workplan, a mid-term report, and a terminal report)

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REPORT CARD

This PDA was completed on 20 January 2004.

  Achievements     Recommendations  

This PDA

  • Assisted in the formation and design of a multi-sectoral, multi-functional, and multi-lateral City Water Governance Committee (CWGC) for better and sustainable water governance in Baguio City
  • Encouraged the participation of local governments and national agencies in a seminar to disseminate lessons learned from Baguio City’s experience

A comprehensive manual and guide of the SWIM methodology was completed and disseminated.

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REPORTS AND RELATED DOCUMENTS


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  1. Since the city is the most industrialized and heavily populated part of the region and the province, the city's operations and activities would have repercussions on ensuring sustainable water consumption, on ensuring equitable access and distribution of potable water, and on minimizing urban waste that affect water basins and aquifers. Access to water would also have repercussions on efforts to reduce urban poverty alongside promoting local economic development.