Author: Alice

On January 21, more than 10 participants from the BEE Timor-Leste (BTL), Ministry of Planning and Territory (MOP), National Authority of Water and Sanitation (ANAS), participated in a workshop showing experience from internal projects in the water supply and sanitation (WSS) sector.

The first session by Mr. Jan Drozdz, PPIP Team Leader, presented projects to reduce non-revenue-water (NRW) in Cambodia and Vietnam. While the state-owned Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority’s  spectacular success in reducing NRW from 72% to 7% was mainly due to its outstanding leadership, which paid much attention to harnessing staff knowledge and capabilities along with putting in place a clear performance framework, in Ho Chi Minh City, the key success factor to reduce NRW was to associate the private sector in performance-based contract for outsourcing technical, commercial, and construction activities related to NRW reduction, providing the contractor with incentives to achieve the desired results. Both cases raised interest from the participants, since the Dili water supply system shows high levels of NRW.

The second sessions by Dr. Brace Boyden, PPIP WSS Key Expert, presented how water utilities in Australia were able to reduce their grid energy consumption and greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions using solar panels. Since electricity consumption is an important share of operational costs for water supply and treatment, installing solar panels can also provide important economic returns for water utilities. Some existing successful projects in Timor-Lest could be used as a reference to build on.

The PPIP, supported by the European Union and the European Investment Bank, aims to support the identification, preparation, and implementation of technically, financially, economically, environmentally, and socially sound investment projects in the forestry, solid waste, and water and sanitation sectors.

For more information please contact:

Mr Jan Drozdz, PPIP Team Leader

Email: jadrx(at)cowi.com

On December 21, employees of the Ministry of Planning and Territory, Dili Municipality Administration, Ministry of Public Works, Ministry of State Administration, Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery participated in a workshop about a digital tool for field data collection.

The PPIP, supported by the European Union and the European Investment Bank, aims to support the identification, preparation, and implementation of technically, financially, economically, environmentally, and socially sound investment projects in the forestry, solid waste, and water and sanitation sectors.

In this context, the COWI implementation team carried a field campaign to identify waste disposal sites using a digital tool for data collection. The tool was used to collect and store digital field observations, such as location, extend, characteristics, and photos of disposal sites. The workshop was the opportunity to familiarize Government employees with the tool, the ODK Collect App, and to present findings and lesson learnt from the field campaign.

Mr. Fernandinho Noronha, who took part in the field campaign stated: “It was proven during the Solid Waste Management field trip that the ODK Collect App is a very practical and easy to use tool that does not require too much training on how to use it in the field.”

Participants appreciated the fact that it could work offline and was open-source and showed interest in being able to use the tool independently. Mr. Kassius Klei, from the Ministry of Planning and Territory, concluded that this topic was of primary relevance and encouraged the organization of a second workshop to strengthen knowledge of participating institutions in the frame of the Capacity Building component of the PPIP.

For more information please contact

Mr Jan Drozdz, PPIP Team Leader

Email: jadrx(at)cowi.com