RECOMMENDATIONS
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START WITH WATER
CAPACITY BUILDING THROUGH PEER SUPPORT TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE
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BUILDING THE RIGHT SKILLS FOR THE JOB: CAPACITATED CITIES
A story from Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil and San Francisco, USA Water utilities around the world share many common challenges, and yet they are not equally equipped to deal with them. Through the initiative Water Operators Partnerships (WOPs), utilities that have successfully confronted a challenge can help their struggling peer utilities to build the capacity they need to overcome their own challenges. In these not-for-profit, win–win engagements, what one utility gains in capacity and performance improvement, the other gains in internal benefits like human resource development or corporate respectability. With the impact of climate change, water scarcity is a reality faced by more and more water service providers, particularly in rapidly developing countries with burgeoning urban populations and high informality. The drought of 2014–2016 made the Brazilian water service provider, CEDAE, keenly aware of its need to strategically conserve its water and protect its more than 10 million customers in the Rio de Janeiro state against more serious scarcity events. Faced with reoccurring droughts for the past 30 years, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) has been implementing a range of innovative demand management and water supply diversification measures, with remarkable success. The US Water Partnership identified the opportunity for a WOP with CEDAE. With funding from the Inter-American Development Bank and under the WOP-Latin America and the Caribbean (WOP-LAC) platform, the SFPUC, together with the California State Water Resources Board, has been helping CEDAE develop a plan to address ongoing water loss, increase water use efficiency, and plan against droughts.