Program

Lead Organization

The World Bank. 

Partners

European Investment Bank (EIB), French Development Agency (AFD).

Challenges

• Most water utilities in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have high levels of water losses, affecting their financial sustainability and ability to meet demand and provide continuous 24/7 water service to the population.
• Decision makers in MENA water utilities have had few opportunities to exchange with colleagues from neighboring countries on a peer-to-peer basis, about practical experiences in designing and implementing a Non-Revenue Water (NRW) reduction program.

Program Objective

To provide decision makers with analytical tools and best practices to address water losses and NRW challenges. The emphasis is on: promoting the use of analytical tools in order to make efficient economic decisions, especially for prioritizing investments and maintenance and repair operations; documenting and sharing relevant experiences based on practical case studies; and building capacity among decision makers and utilities managers.

Selected Results

Deepened knowledge/increased capacity: Identification of specific areas that would benefit from knowledge transfer by Tunisia’s National Public Water Supply Utility (SONEDE) and Morocco’s national office for electricity and water (ONEE). Identification of further partnerships and exchange of best practices among partners through expert visits and workshops.

Twinning of utilities to promote peer-to-peer exchanges. The first exchanges between SONEDE-ONEE took place in October 2013 (Morocco) and December 2013 (Tunisia), with the participating utilities drafting a report on knowledge learning and gaps.

A second regional workshop was held in Malta in June 2014 with six participating countries presenting their experiences and challenges (Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, West Bank and Gaza, Yemen).