152 The Future of Water in African Cities
i. Select indicators for the dashboard from the 31 cities database for each variable. For each of the seven variables, indicators were selected so as to be as consistent and relevant for all the cities reviewed. The aim was to give a concise idea of the situation in each city as well as to show how each city fared in relation to some internationally established standard. Second, they were chosen so as to lend themselves easily to visual representation and enhance user friendliness. For instance, inter- and intra-annual precipitation data over a period of time were selected specifically for the dashboard. ii. Add international benchmarks for comparison. To give an estimate of the relative situation of water utilities in SubSaharan Africa, the dashboard also included a comparison of the individual city indicators with a fixed benchmark and the average of values for all 31 cities. The international benchmark for the operating ratio (operating costs to revenue ratio) for water utilities was set at 130 percent (based on Banerjee and Morella, 2011); for the collection ratio, it was set at 95 percent, as it was considered a realistic benchmark for bill collection (though a 100 percent collection ratio is considered ideal for best practice but rarely attainable). A benchmark of 25 percent of nonrevenue water was also considered acceptable. Finally, the benchmark for the future performance indicator was evaluated at 100 percent—meaning that the probability of the water utility facing financial difficulties in the next two years is nil, which is a strong indicator of best practice (Moffitt et al., 2012). iii. Create visual tools to enhance end user accessibility. To improve accessibility and comprehension of data, the dashboard incorporates a selection of visual tools to better represent the selected indicators and to monitor the information provided by the indicators at a glance. Graphic visualizations including different types of charts and graphs have been produced and customized with the purpose to better present to end users the data gathered. The objective of these visual tools is also to present different pieces of information together to identify the relevant challenges and capacities for each one of the cities in the study. By using colors, sizes, and shapes of figures, the dashboard also has the aim to increase the understanding of the information presented. The figures also show the trends and the progress for some selected indicators compared to the general average of the study sample.