Utilities are critical players in the supply of safe, reliable, affordable, equitable and resilient water and sanitation services and the achievement of SDG 6. However, they face multi-faceted challenges (governance, financial, environmental) that hinder the fulfilment of their core mandate.
The WWX programme , co-funded and implemented by the Dutch water operators and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, aims to strengthen partner utilities’ overall performance through long-term Water Operating Partnerships (WOPs) and extend services to 10 million people by 2030. The programme is implemented in three phases and is currently half-way through the second phase.
Aguaconsult and Ecopsis, in collaboration with IRC and independent consultants completed the Mid-Term Review of the second Phase of this ambitious programme to assess its performance (using the OECD/DAC criteria) and identifying lessons for the second half.
We spoke to over 350 stakeholders across 15 countries and produced 18 individual WOP reports and an overarching programme-wide review. The MTR confirmed the high ambition and strong learning capacity of the programme. We found all shifts operated under Phase 2 to be highly relevant and confirmed that the programme was on track to achieve its targets in terms of SDG contribution and maturity level changes. We also provided eight high-level recommendations to further enhance the programme's success. These include positioning the WOP more strategically within the utilities' turnaround agenda, anchoring this agenda for change in and with relevant stakeholders in the enabling environment, and increasing efforts to mobilise investments at country level to fulfill the programme's ambition.
We are thankful to the WWX programme, its highly committed team across VEI, World Waternet, Dunea, Oasen and are grateful for their support, openness, and willingness to learn from this process and the MTR team! We enjoyed being a small part of this big journey.
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