Water for All: Water Operators Partnerships Program

Water

Water Operators Partnerships Program

The Water Operators Partnership (WOPs) Program, a collaboration between ADB and the Global Water Partnership works to enable water utilities to improve service coverage and delivery, financial sustainability, and other aspects of their performance.

The WOPs Program is actually part of a larger plan to achieve breakthroughs in vital areas of water supply and resources management and attain the Millennium Development Goals—the Hashimoto Action Plan (HAP). Announced by the United Nations Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB) in early 2006, the HAP called for breakthroughs in six key areas: water operators’ partnerships, financing, sanitation, monitoring and reports, integrated water resources management, and water disaster.

UNSGAB has asked the different regional development banks, including ADB, to assist in operationalizing the plan.

ADB implements WOPs through the Regional Technical Assistance (RETA) 6396: Supporting Water Operators’ Partnership in Asia, financed by the Japan Special Fund and approved in April 2007.

WOPs Strategies

To achieve its aims, WOPs adopted key strategies whose activities and outputs are interlinked to ensure that targeted support is given to utilities. These strategies are:

	Formation of Water Utilities Networks View established Water Utilities Networks that promote knowledge exchange and capacity development.
	Continuous Improvement and Benchmarking Find out how Continuous Improvement and Benchmarking helps utilities improve performance.
	Twinning of Water Utilities Discover how expert water utilities help developing utilities enhance efficiency via twinning arrangements.
	Training Workshops Know more about the WOPs Program’s training workshops on technical aspects of water utility operations.