Tshwane: reducing water losses

Objectives:  

The project aims to ensure that citizens of Tshwane have access to safely managed drinking water services. The Constitution of South Africa includes provisions ensuring citizens' rights to adequate water supply, and the provision of water services is constitutionally mandated to local government.

The project:  The study financed by the UMDF (400,000 USD grant) consists in designing a program for reducing water losses and improving revenue and financial viability based on risk principles, and to prove the bankability of such a program. 

The project involves data collection and analysis, supporting the Municipality in decision-making on the most viable form of funding and procurement mechanisms for the program, ensuring that climate and socioeconomic aspects of the project are sufficiently addressed and responding to the requirements of the participating Development Financing Institutions (DFIs).

Components & Outputs:

·   Program definition and evaluation, defining methods, performance indicators

·   Financial assessment, to update the financial model of the program and draw a financing plan

·   Socioeconomic analysis to provide information that enables the assessment of welfare changes due to the project, and estimation of the project’s impact on all segments of the society 

·   Institutional Capacity Needs Assessment

·   Climate, Environmental and Social Safeguard Requirements and Assessment

 Generating revenues by investing in losses prevention  

South Africa is a water scarce country ranked as the 30th driest state in the world with a water stress level of 63.5%, which demonstrates there is high competition for water use. In 2018, the South African Department of Water and Sanitation estimated  that municipalities are losing about 1660 million m3 per year through NonRevenue Water (NRW) at a unit cost of R6/m3, which amounts to R9.9 billion each year, and invited them to improve drastically the way the resource is managed. 

The studies funded by the UMDF in Tshwane seek to demonstrate the positive impact in investing in performing water management systems and infrastructure, embedding robust financial components. It is anticipated that the actual implementation of the program will generate more revenue by addressing water losses, which will strengthen the capacity of the city to augment the budget for maintenance, triggering a virtuous circle.