Global efforts on the two subsectors have been hindered by a lack of “comprehensive, accurate, current, and detailed information on how much, and how well, financial resources are being spent in the sector at the national, regional, and global levels,” the authors state. They add that, to the best of their knowledge, “no previous studies have succeeded in producing reliable estimates of the spending gaps in WSS and irrigation because of the dearth of comprehensive national spending information from budgetary sources.”

The aim of the report, Funding A Water-Secure Future: An Assessment of Global Public Spending, is to guide thinking on alternative ways to close the funding gaps. It notes recent assessments that have highlighted a need to at least quadruple current rates of progress to achieve universal coverage of safe water supply and sanitation by 2030. It also points to much that can be done by governments and the sector itself.

More than 90% of spending in the sector comes from the public sector, with less than 2% coming from private sector investments, and the rates are not likely to change soon. But while it will not be easy to increase public financing, the study found that most countries are not spending their full budget allocations. Indeed, almost 30% of allocations go unspent. Because of what the authors describe as “systemic constraints on the sector’s absorptive capacity”, spending is hindered by institutional, governance and project management issues.

On top of this, only 14% of water utilities in the Bank’s IBNET database cover their full costs. The study also assessed the ‘efficiency losses’ of utilities in the database, putting these at 16% of average total operating costs for a typical utility. Improving on this is imperative, but needs “drastic changes across the spectrum”, from engineering design to workforce motivation.

The report also highlights the extent to which government support is biased towards service provision for urban and non-poor segments of society. If governments really have the goals of universal access to water supply and sanitation in mind, then these biases need to be addressed.

While it is unlikely that rates of progress will quadruple to meet the 2030 deadline, the report offers grounds for optimism. Rather than being faced with a funding gap that is seemingly unlikely to be filled, there are hugely challenging issues, but ones we know can be addressed.

This is the lens through which to read the articles in this edition. From the technology focus of the opportunities to advance the design and operation of large wastewater treatment plants through to the essential need to support and build the human capacity in the sector. From the policy opportunities for connecting the climate agenda with a drive towards resilient services through to how we manage urban drainage assets. Greater funding is not a useful goal in isolation. A goal of well-run service providers, with institutional and governance set-ups that support them, is, and we know this is something that is achievable.

Keith Hayward, Editor

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A few years ago I saw the CEO of an Australian water utility talk about managing water supply in a period of unprecedented water scarcity. She said a key element of the utility’s success in changing consumer behaviour and reducing per capita water usage was a broad and deep process of public participation. She also said that the process had been challenging, that it took a shift in company culture, and that done badly public participation could impede progress and undermine a utility’s message.

Imagine, then, that you work for a drinking water service provider. Your boss asks you to carry out public participation during an upcoming tariff revision, but the company has never done this before and there are no specific guidelines to help you be successful. Your colleagues may not take public participation seriously, and the public, your customers, are unlikely to be in favour of higher tariffs.

What do you do?

While we know that public participation is an important driving force for improving water services management, there is no “magic bullet”, no single technique or model to involve our customers and all interested parties in the decision-making process. What is considered appropriate needs to be decided case-by-case, and must consider specific cultural and institutional peculiarities.

Nevertheless, there are proven approaches to effectively incorporate public participation into tariff-setting. The ‘3 I’s of public participation framework’ can help you “unpack” public participation and improve decisions.

Back in our fictitious utility, your public engagement efforts, will also be undermined unless your colleagues who are responsible for drafting and revising tariffs, and your institutional counterparts who advise and approve tariffs, such as regulators and consumer bodies, find this process beneficial and welcome feedback from the public. In other words, public institutions that have stakes in the decision-making also need to support public participation.

Without this, the expectations raised by public participation will not be realised and trust in the process and company can be irreversibly lost. In our 3 I’s framework, integrating public participation into the tariff-setting process from the start, is the first thing to consider.

Next, we need to look to the public domain to identify the “public”. The “public” is never a homogeneous group. It consists of individuals and groups who have different interests and needs. Some may be supportive, some may be obstructive, some may be indifferent, and some may not yet have an opinion. Participants should not be labelled for their positions. Stances and nuances of their opinions may easily change during the course of open dialogues, learning and reflections.

The focus should not be on the position they hold–“for”, “against” or “neutral”–but rather on understanding the interests underlying those positions, which can uncover hidden concerns or problems. A careful approach is needed to understand those concerns and find ways to make progress.

Once you’ve identified your counterparts involved in tariff-setting process, and public stakeholder groups, it’s time to link the two through implementation planning. As the public participation planner, you need to find the When, Why and How of public participation, remembering that no size fits all. Applying different techniques for public participation at each stage of the decision-making process can help.

With some stakeholder groups, you may want to engage them in face-to-face discussions at an early stage. With others, social media may be an appropriate tool to obtain input once tariff proposals are ready. Importantly, techniques should be chosen to fit the objective of each stage in the decision-making process.

Ultimately, you may conclude that there’s no need for public participation given your local circusmtances. Thinking through each “I” can help you understand your needs before rushing to conclusions.

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By Heather Smith*

The desire for resilient water systems is fast becoming a keystone of utility governance. In 2016, an influential US consortium published “Taking the Next Step” which recommended ten attributes of effective utility management.

Foremost was a call for “enterprise resiliency.” That utility-wide, strategic approach meant utility leaders and staff worked together both internally and with external partners to anticipate, respond to, and avoid problems.

Resilience thinking–the ability of a system to adapt to a disturbance–isn’t new. And threats may be from one-off shock events, or from underlying ‘slow motion’, or ‘slow burn’ stresses. But while simple in concept, achieving resiliency is complicated. It requires all human, organisational and technological aspects of an entity must work in concert, under a leadership willing to be counter-intuitive and, at times, challenging of perceived business wisdom.

The basic concepts of resilience have been adopted from materials science, from the world of structural integrity, from organisational psychology and from ecological studies of natural systems.

Indeed some offer ecological resilience as the platform for understanding the collective resilience of organisations. Yet in a real, dynamic world, no one assumes systems should return to their pre-stressed state after a shock; rather, an organisation should learn from the stresses upon it, survive, adapt and move forward to an improved state of readiness. To start, utilities can establish tolerance levels for, and management strategies of, the full range of, business risks. Utilities are exposed to rising legal, regulatory, financial, environmental, safety, physical and cyber security risks. They risk losses from human resource turnover and losses from natural disasters. All these risks are complicated by and interdependent with other institutions.

Through proactive measures, water managers who adopt a strategic approach can strengthen their enterprise with enough flexibility and ‘organisational slack’ to anticipate stress and respond to it.

None of this is new. Resilience literature is long-standing, extensive and transdisciplinary. Yet few have translated the elegant conceptual frameworks into practical tools that help utilities plan systemic changes to become ‘future proof’.

Developing these practical tools is no simple task. If resilience implies that utilities should become more flexible and adaptable, the notion of fixed benchmarks or standards to measure progress and plan improvements becomes more difficult.

Nonetheless, in the UK both the National Infrastructure Commission and newly-established Water and Wastewater Resilience Action Group have helped develop resilience metrics. These are still in their early stages, but potential metrics include: how much of a treatment works at risk from flooding have protection in place; the proportion of customers with multiple sources of supply; and the amount of households rewarded for water-saving practices through tariffs or other financial incentives. To be sure, development of such metrics will always face tensions between demands for consistency and comparability versus the need for relevance to local contexts and priorities.

A resilient organisation is mature, adaptive, flexible, and open to learning. Resilience in the water sector may come through the process of managing innovation. But this doesn’t necessarily imply a focus on ‘in-house’ research and development. Utilities are increasingly encouraged to look beyond their own boundaries to find unorthodox solutions to their long-term needs.

In practice, resilient utilities scan technologies, conduct more rapid trials and create ‘safe spaces’ to quickly test performance outcomes. Models of ‘open innovation’ are now emerging in the water sector, which open opportunities for new relationships that share risks and rewards, among utility organisations, their customers, and solution providers.

The water sector can transition from business risk to enterprise resiliency, but only if it improves relationships with external stakeholders, integrates the technology supply chain, and builds regulatory confidence. By following the well-trodden path of other industries, the water sector will find it is not alone.

*Heather Smith is a lecturer in water governance at the Cranfield Water Science Institute.

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