Stream 2 - Non-Profit Peer Support Partnerships for Capacity building of Water Operators – GWOPA Session

Date:: Thursday January 17, 2013
Time:: 11:30 – 14:00

The session will look at where WOPs have planted a seed for investment. It will present a number of cases from different regions where WOPs have led to follow-up funds. The presentations and the panel discussion which follows will seek to identify what makes WOPs attractive to lending institutions and how WOPs can be tailored to meet the needs of investors without compromising the needs of users. It will seek to understand how GWOPA and its partners can better match WOPs will the all-important follow-up finance.

Water Operators’ Partnerships – so-called WOPs - are peer support arrangements between two or more water or sanitation operators, carried out on a not-for-profit basis in the objective of strengthening operator capacity. WOPs are being promoted as a simple but effective mode of bolstering the ability of these essential service providers to play their full role in delivering quality basic services for all.

In developing countries, investment capital for infrastructural development is cited by managers as the greatest obstacle to extending service provision to the poor. Developing utilities’ capacities is recognized as a powerful tool for unlocking available investment. Capacity development programs like Water Operators’ Partnerships help utilities improve their policies and practices so they can operate more effectively and assure the confidence of investors – be they public or private, foreign or domestic – to invest in service improvement and extension.