Very intersting article on "The value of implementing workforce good practices for water utilities" by Cheryl Davis and Diana Guio (IWA).

Full article can be read here! You can also teake part in the survey to share your own examples of good practices in workforce sustainability.

Article outline:

"Staff knowledge, skills and motivation are critical factors for delivering high quality water and wastewater services, protecting public health and the environment. What do water organisations do to ensure qualified candidates and staff for mission-critical jobs and overall quality work? Innovation and best practices can be found in utilities around the globe.

In Albania, the Water Supply and Sewerage Association conducted a survey to identify the training needs of staff in their member agencies. Computer-aided design, billing and collection software systems, chlorination disinfection systems, and maintenance were identified as training priorities for utility staff. This cost-effective measure increased the competencies of staff within a number of utilities. In a similar way, the association is developing a training and certification system for water and wastewater treatment operators, with skilled employees of member utilities serving as instructors.

In Australia, Yarra Valley Water has worked since 2001 on building a constructive culture to meet their long-term corporate objectives. The aim is to engage staff productively by aligning their personal values and objectives with those of the organisation. Cultural fit became a measure for all staff. A comprehensive staff development program has a focus on mindset, resilience, innovation, constructive behaviors, goal setting and achievement thinking, as well as more traditional skills training!"

The World Bank and the International Water Association (IWA) declared their intentions at World Water Week today to establish a global partnership to help countries, especially the poorest, improve management of water that is pumped but then lost or unaccounted for, called non-revenue water (NRW).

In developing countries, roughly 45 million cubic meters of water are lost daily with an economic value of over US$3 billion per year. Saving half of those losses would provide enough water to serve at least 90 million people. High levels of  NRW reflect huge volumes of water being lost through leaks, not being invoiced to customers, or both. Reducing NRW can significantly improve the performance of public water utilities in developing countries.

The two international organizations set out to collaborate on a joint program that aims to capture good practices in the use of performance based contracts (PBCs) to reduce NRW, raise awareness on the issue of NRW, simplify and streamline the preparation of such contracts, and support their implementation in developing countries in the next few years. Furthermore the partnership will build the market of suppliers at the local level.

Full statement of Intent can be found here!

Article can be found here: http://www.unwater.org/news-events/news-details/en/c/428698/

"In approaching the 2030 Agenda with a dedicated goal on water and sanitation, it was recognized that the sector at large would require a coherent monitoring framework, with improved data collection and analysis, covering the whole water cycle. To meet this need, a number of United Nations agencies joined forces under the UN-Water umbrella to develop theIntegrated Monitoring of Water and Sanitation Related SDG Targets (GEMI)initiative.

Integrating and expanding on existing monitoring efforts, draft methodologies for all global SDG 6 indicators have been developed. The methodologies are sensitive to national needs and realities, and have been designed to enable Member States to monitor SDG 6 at a level in line with their national capacity and available resources, and from there advance progressively.

In a first stakeholder consultation in Geneva in January 2015, feedback on the initial methodologies was received from Member State representatives and other relevant stakeholders, and throughout 2015, the methodologies were continuously refined based on feedback from the Member State-led Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs). Starting in April 2016, the methodologies have been introduced to a small number of countries for in-depth pilot testing.

We are now inviting a larger audience to review and provide feedback on the methodologies. Should you be interested in doing so, please find below a standard form for providing feedback, as well as links to the different methodologies. We would be grateful to receive your feedback by 31 October 2016. Please email the completed form (one for each methodology reviewed) to Will Reidhead, Global Monitoring Officer at UN-Water.

For an introduction to the methodologies please refer to

• How to use the Integrated Monitoring Guide for SDG 6 (draft)
• SDG 6 targets and indicators (draft)

For more general information about the Integrated Monitoring initiative for SDG 6 please refer to the brochure Monitoring Water and Sanitation in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development - An introduction.

Based on the learning from the in-country pilot testing and this broader review, the methodologies will be revised by the end of 2016, to allow for global implementation starting in 2017, and a global baseline for SDG 6 by 2018.

Standard form to provide feedback on the monitoring methodologies:

Download the standard form here 

Monitoring methodologies under review:

DRAFT Step-by-step methodology for 6.3.1 on wastewater treatment

DRAFT Step-by-step methodology for 6.3.2 on ambient water quality

DRAFT Step-by-step methodology for 6.4.1 on water use efficiency

DRAFT Step-by-step methodology for 6.4.2 on water stress

DRAFT Step-by-step methodology for 6.5.1 on integrated water resources management

DRAFT Step-by-step methodology for 6.5.2 on transboundary cooperation

DRAFT Step-by-step methodology for 6.6.1 on water-related ecosystems 

"

Dear DANUBIS.org community,

we are happy to present some changes and new features regarding the DANUBIS.org water platform.

The main changes inlcude:

• the brandnew Business Opportunities section, where you can upload and find Job Openings as well as open Calls and Tenders in the region
• the former DANUBIS News is now the sector news, where you can post any news regarding the water sector in the region or a specific country
• the new DANUBIS.org news replaces the Steering Committee news and provides news on the platform itself and on the Steering Committee
• in the upload section, you will now find a small question mark next to each type of contribution indicating what type of posts fit into it

We hope that you like the new features and changes made and look forward to your contributions!

If you have any comments or feedback for us, please contact us at office@danubis.org

A workshop on the functionality of the DANUBIS Data Collection and Management (DCM) platform was held in Belgrade on 22-24 June 2016. It was a training session to provide staff of managing institutions with the capacity to launch, manage and use the DCM DANUBIS system for upload and analysis of data from the respective country.

On the last day of the workshop the participants discussed the next steps to be taken to implement the DANUBIS DCM platform in the participating countries. The minutes of the meeting are enclosed.

Dear colleagues and members of the DANUBIS Steering Group:

Thank you for your participation in the Steering Group meeting on May 11^th in Vienna and via audio / video conference; and apologies to those who had issues getting connected. Below is a short summary of the discussions; the presentation that was made is also attached.

1. Introductions. Representatives from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, FYR Macedonia, Hungary, Kosovo (remotely), Moldova, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia, as well as IAWD, the World Bank, NALAS, GIZ and IB-Net attended the meeting and briefly summarized their country’s activities with regards to utility performance data collection systems and benchmarking. All participants underlined again the value of having a regional platform to allow for exchanges and benchmarking of utility performance over country boundaries, and many indicated that they are using DANUBIS.org regularly in their work.
2. Presentation of the Platform. All of the changes agreed upon at the February 2016 Steering Group meeting have been incorporated into the DANUBIS.org website, and a full presentation of the new features was made, including:

• Utility Performance Scorecard. The new utility performance scorecard, particularly targeted to decision makers within national and local governments, provides a quick overview of how a utility performs compared to similar companies in the region;
• Utility Benchmarking Report. The new utility benchmarking report provides a comprehensive report on all aspects of the performance of a given utility and its evolution over time and compared to similar companies. It is primarily aimed at utility professionals and management.
• Improved updates functionalities. The ability for users to register on the DANUBIS homepage and receive daily and/or weekly updates on changes and news from DANUBIS.org, was presented and participants were encouraged to subscribe. Registered users have automatically been subscribed but can change their update preferences in their profile. The DANUBIS LinkedIn group has also been created and actively moderated since February - participants are also encouraged to connect.

3. Comments and feedback on the platform. Participants strongly endorsed the improvements made to the platform. Some of the additional comments made included:

• The risks and opportunities associated with making utility performance data available to a wide public. Sector professionals will need to make a special effort to reach out to their elected representatives and the media to ensure that the information is understood properly, which was seen as an opportunity to move the dialogue to a more results-focused, fact-based discussion.
• The need to focus on improving the coverage and quality of the data available in the platform to ensure that the results of the benchmarking are useful to users;
• The importance to support utility performance data systems at national level, building on existing institutions and ensuring that the results are also fed back to utilities in the country to ensure an positive performance improvement impact.

4. Dissemination and usage of the platform. Very significant resources have now been invested in making the DANUBIS platform available for all. Participants in the Steering group agreed that the focus in coming months should now be on ensuring that the platform is as widely known and used as possible, before further developments are tackled. Institutions in the steering group should play the main role in ensuring a lively and useful platform. The following actions were discussed:

• All participants: Participants in the Steering Group should make a commitment not only to upload resources and information to the platform, but to also publicize and promote it further. The new brochure (attached) can be used for that purpose as well. All participating institutions were also invited to create a link to DANUBIS.org on their website and mention it in their newsletters.
• National institutions: institutions in each country should consider whether to follow the example of Bulgaria, BiH, Kosovo and Serbia and setup a country portal in their national language to ensure the platform content, and in particular the utility database, is accessible to their national professionals. The amount of work involved with creating and maintaining a country portal is rather limited and can also be an easy way for institutions collecting utility performance data to make it available to their members, in national language, in a highly interactive manner.
• National Waterworks Associations. National associations are seen as prime interlocutor to ensure that their member utilities are aware and make use of the platform. They were invited to ensure that DANUBIS is presented and explained to member utilities, for example on the side of their national events.
• NALAS. Local governments would be an important potential audience and target of the DANUBIS.org platform, in particular with regards to the new utility performance scorecard. NALAS will explore how it can ensure a better diffusion of the platform, through its website, its newsletter and possible a dedicated training to national LGU associations so they can relay it to their members.

In order to facilitate dissemination of the platform, IAWD and the World Bank confirmed their availability to organize follow-up trainings, virtually or in person, on the platform so that national institutions would be able to promote it adequately. Interested institutions should feel free to contact the DANUBIS team.

5. Future priorities. The meeting participants agreed that the following would be the priorities for the coming period:

• Governance: the participants did not consider that DANUBIS required a more formal governance framework for now, and the use of a relatively open Steering Group to guide and advise the DANUBIS team was sufficient for now.
• Visibility: The main priority of the coming months will be to ensure that the platform received as much visibility in the region. IAWD has just hired a new knowledge management and capacity building coordinator, Katerina Schilling (schilling@iawd.at) who will be supporting the participants in the Steering Group to ensure this is jointly achieved.
• Potential award for leading utilities: the idea to highlight best performing utility companies, and best improving companies, at the region’s level and for each country, was discussed and will be explored further in the coming months.

6. DANUBIS Data Collection and Management Platform. The participants were also informed that in parallel with the public DANUBIS.org platform, at the request of the Kosovo regulatory agency, a separate, online data collection and management platform is being developed to allow national institutions to easily collect, validate, manage, share and publish utility performance data. The platform is in final development stage and a training workshop will be held in Belgrade on June 22-24 with representatives of the four national institutions that are planning to use the platform in their country: ADKOM (Macedonia); the Kosovo regulatory agency, the Montenegro Waterworks Associations; and the Serbian water professionals association. The same signed on May 11^th a MoU with IAWD and the World Bank to define the roles and responsibilities of each institution with regards to the DANUBIS DCM platform. Further institutions interested in knowing more, or making use of the platform, should approach the IAWD / World Bank team.

We hope that this summarizes our discussions and invite you to engage with us should you have any question or comment. In parallel, please do your part to ensure that the platform continues to grow in content and usefulness - spread the word, and connect!

Best regards

David Michaud / World Bank and Philip Weller / IAWD