Inception Workshop on Benchmarking and Water Utilities Data Book for India
Opening Remarks by
Kallidaikurichi Easwaran Seetharam
Principal Water Supply and Sanitation Specialist
Asian Development Bank
17 January 2007
Chennai, India
Respected experts, and friends, it is an honor for me to open today's workshop on behalf of the Asian Development Bank. On behalf of ADB, I extend our warm appreciation to the Ministry of Urban Development for organizing this workshop. I also think to thank Indian Institute of Technology, Madras for hosting this workshop. We all know about the importance of water and sanitation to leading a full, healthy and productive life.
The challenges of water and sanitation in Asia have not newly emerged. But the challenges have taken a new dimension because the Asian region has made significant economic progress in the recent years. Without proper water infrastructure, there is a danger that the high economic growth can either slow down or worse even reverse. Without good quality of life for its citizen, economic growth will not result in real generation of wealth for its citizens, and therefore will not be sustainable.
As we all know, India is home to a huge number of people living without access to safe and convenient drinking water and sanitation facilities. Nearly 50% of the unserved in Asia live in India. The extent of the region's problems is borne out by ADB's recent report, 'Asia Water Watch 2015,' produced with UNDP and others, that detailed the extent to which countries in our region are on - or off - track to meet their Target 10 - "to halve by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation.'
The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) announced by Government of India in December 2005, echoes ADB's views on the real and serious extent of the problems and certainly adds additional impetus to our efforts to address the issues through our advice, our lending and our technical assistance services.
ADB's Water Policy fully supports making water a human right; ensuring there are national plans and strategies in place; supporting nations with international aid and developing global action plans. ADB is one of the few multilateral institutions that have uncovered myths about progress in water services delivery. It is not the lack of funding, but legal, political, institutional, and organizational barriers that hamper progress.
During this workshop, the resource persons will be elaborating on many of these challenges affecting the water utilities. I want to emphasize that "we cannot manage what we do not measure". Therefore, creating a databook and undertaking benchmarking is the first step in the right direction to improve performance. The benchmarking program results will be published as a water utilities data book similar to the Second Water Utilities Databook: Asian and Pacific Region (October 1997) and the Data Book of Southeast Asian Water Utilities (June 2005). The data book will contain profiles of each water utility, comparison of performance among the utilities, and a profile of the sector.
Let me tell you briefly about what ADB has done in response to the JNNURM. ADB has articulated its own commitment to water in our Medium Term Strategy, translated it into action through the ADB Water Financing Program 2006-2010. The Program aims to double our investments to over $2 billion annually-to ensure that we deliver sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation to 200 million people over the period 2006-2010. WFP will comprise investments in three key areas: (i) Rural water services to improve health and livelihoods; (ii) Urban water services to support sustained economic growth, and (iii) Basin water management to promote integrated water resource management and healthy rivers.
The envisioned long-term impact of the WFP 2006-2010 is a significant increase in the number of people in the Asia and Pacific region with access to reliable and affordable water services for safe water, sanitation, and productive livelihoods. Effective and sustainable integrated management of water resources in river basins for sustained economic growth and environmental improvement is also expected. Initial Target Countries are India, Indonesia, Pakistan, People's Republic of China, Philippines, and Viet Nam, which account for nearly 80% of ADB's investments in the region.
WFP also comprises a special initiative to allow "out of the box" thinking and look at new and expeditious ways of addressing the water sector challenges in cities. With good data and a performance improvement program in place, the water utilities cities can become potential candidates to attract more financing. ADB will be your partner to realize that vision.
WFP will mobilize cofinancing from multilateral and bilateral partners and the private sector. And it will employ the full range of ADB's new financing products, which include subsovereign and nonsovereign public sector lending, multitranche financing, local currency financing, refinancing, financing syndications, and risk-sharing arrangements.
The 2006 HDR of UNDP reminds us that "children in rich countries do not die for want of a glass of clean water" and water borne diseases in the rich countries are "subjects of text books not hospital wards and morgues". It also emphasizes that 'most people without clean water live in Asia' (quotes from page 5 of the report). ADB has been rallying with developing countries, and donor partners, in support of the ASEAN region's commitment to act quickly to reach the MDG Target 10 earlier, by 2010. ADB has also promoted a new paradigm of business unusual, "time is of essence", through a shift in products, business processes, and partnerships.
Water, unlike electricity, cannot be produced. It can only be harvested. Drinking water is like food or medicine. People should not have to buy it to sustain life. About 1 to 2 liters per capita per day (lpcd), the average individual need should be made available immediately to all people. The next 10 to 20 lpcd is a basic need, for other uses such as cooking, bathing, laundering and other uses. If needed, governments should subsidize its delivery to the poor people. Additional quantities of water should be available 24 hours a day and the service has to be sustainable. This water should be delivered as a good, recovering the full cost of delivering it.
What is policy on sanitation after all? For decades, development experts have been struggling to find the right word to describe the gruesome state of declining living standards resulting from lack of sanitation. UN partner agencies such as UNHABITAT and UNDP have finally picked up the "magic wand" to rally political leaders and decision makers, calling it as a human right.
APANA-a new approach to smarter sanitation. A fresh thinking to sanitation is emerging. Perhaps it is time to coin a new word to define it. Water has been accepted as "life" without any dispute. Sanitation is characterized first by its easy accessibility. To answer the call of nature, the facility must be within reach. The provision of the facility appreciating the need for privacy, especially for women, highlights the importance of human dignity in providing sanitation.
Both water and sanitation provisions are best when they are supplied via house connections. Particularly the link between housing and sanitation is crucial for sustainable provision of sanitation to women and children-a point that has not been well recognized. Water for all could be based on zonal or group approach, but, sanitation for all would call for supplies to each household. Sanitation and water thus need to be integrated with housing and urban development strategies, at least over the longer term.
Sanitation has to be affordable to especially to the poor. Water supply had been suffering from cost recovery problems, due to people's low willingness-to-pay, and even lower governments' willingness-to-charge. In the case of sanitation, the story is dismal. The investment needed for wastewater management is almost three times more than for water supply, thus making financing challenge much greater. Full sewerage is indeed too expensive for DMCs to finance. DMCs should consider incremental improvements that can be quickly made. If needed, governments will have to subsidize the poor to have access to decent sanitation.
The big challenge for sanitation is ensure that the natural and environmental impacts are minimized and mitigated. Several new ideas and technologies, including separation of urine from human excrement at source have become accepted practice. The specific technologies that meet individual urban and rural conditions may vary form place to place: in dispersed, low-income rural areas, the appropriate technology may be a simple pit latrine; whereas in a congested urban slum area with reliable water service, it may be a low-cost sewerage system. Finally, the gap in sanitation is so huge-three times the gap in drinking water-we should concentrate our efforts to achieve the target expeditiously.
Business unusual means thinking outside the box. ADB is encouraging developing member country governments to explore innovative partnerships with civil society and the private sector to improve governance, efficiency of service delivery and maximize resources. A variety of new public-public schemes are possible. We have documented new ideas, new attempts, and new success stories.
Governments need to modify their role from one of service provider to regulator and should delegate service provision to autonomous and accountable service providers. Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority in Cambodia is a success story of a public utility enjoying operational and financial autonomy that has put customer accountability on top of its mission.
The capacity of private sector not only to invest in water but also to share its expertise in managing utilities in a more efficient and commercial manner should be maximized. NGO's should be empowered as government's partner in catalyzing reform. Their passion for both the urban and rural poor, their knowledge of local communities and will to implement makes them invaluable resources for both public and private suppliers. NGOs in India are being credited for implementing water supply projects in less than 2 years. In addition, the strength of civil society as partners in advocacy work and capacity building should be utilized.
I wish to close, with one sentence that impressed me very much (quote on page 13 in the recent Human Development Report) "providing a glass of clean water and a toilet may be challenging, but it is not rocket science."
Thank you very much for your attention.
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