WaterLinks to Accelerate Safe Water and Sanitation Delivery

WOPs have proven their value in many parts of the world by successfully pairing, or "twinning," water operators in search of solutions with other operators who have addressed similar challenges. These twinning arrangements have helped recipient water operators improve their efficiencies and capacities, resulting in more people gaining access to safe drinking water

and sanitation.

The rationale behind the WOPs is that most of the capacity for improving water and sanitation services lies with the operators, 90% of which are publicly managed. The United Nations Secretary General's Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation proposed the development of WOPs as structured programs of cooperation among water operators, based on mutual support

and on a not-for-profit basis, in its 2006 Hashimoto Action Plan. Mandated by the United Nations Secretary General to promote and coordinate activities related to WOPs, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UNHABITAT) has established a Global WOPs Alliance Centre and identified the need to establish Regional Partnership Networks for WOPs.

The agreement with WaterLinks supports the WOPs initiative through:

• Brokering and facilitating twinning partnerships between expert water operators and Asian utilities and municipal agencies on selected water and sanitation operations;
• Organizing water operator capacity building activities such as workshops, conferences and training events; and
• Developing and maintaining a knowledge hub web portal (www.waterlinks.org) on WOP initiatives and best practices. The portal collects and disseminates WOP approaches, training, toolkits and other capacity building materials, and WOP-related scheduled events organized by the partners

Participating development partners combine efforts and contribute to WaterLinks based on their own strengths and interests. IWA takes the lead in dissemination and knowledge sharing and works through its member network to broker new WOPs. USAID, through its Environmental Cooperation-Asia (ECO-Asia) program, focuses primarily on the facilitation of WOP arrangements, while contributing to regional capacity building initiatives led by the ADB.

ADB provides technical assistance to water operators in Asia by financing twinning arrangements, supporting water utility networks, and organizing technical workshops. USAID and the ADB also leverage their resources by jointly supporting selected WOP arrangements.

WaterLinks currently operates as an unofficial collaborative network of development partners, although plans are underway to create a permanent WaterLinks secretariat in the near future.