Event Description
Water Operators’ Partnerships – or peer support between water and sanitation utilities – is gaining growing prominence as an impactful, low-cost tool for improving the capacity of public utilities in their challenge to meet the Millennium Development Goals. The Global WOPs Alliance – a worldwide network for fostering collaboration between water supply and sanitation utilities – is helping to link and reinforce various regional water operators’ partnership initiatives that are setting up around the world to strengthen exchange between water and sanitation utility operators. There is a great deal of experience in utility twinning being generated at the regional level and much to learn about what constitutes a successful WOP.

Objectives of the Seminar

The objective of the seminar is to share lessons and challenges for effective twinning from the regional WOP mechanisms. The seminar will focus on modalities for mobilising meaningful partnerships between water operators at the regional and global levels and on understanding what is needed to further scale up this good practice. Presentations will be made by representatives of teams of regional WOPs and their partner supporters on their success stories of capacity building through twinning programs.

Following the presentations, a multi-stakeholder panel discussion will focus on the identification of success factors and the most pressing capacity gaps, and roles/strategies of the Global WOPs Alliance for facilitating further success as well as for bridging such gaps.

Expected Outputs

1. Distilling success stories and challenges encountered in the implementation of WOPs.
2. Identification of the needs (knowledge, brokering, financing, advocacy, capacity building) of WOPs mechanisms and water operators for planning and facilitating future twining programs and how the Global WOPs Alliance can support this.
3. Promotion of the WOPs concept in general.

Programme
Chair: Bert Diphoorn, Ag. Director of Human Settlements Financing Division, UN-HABITAT