Search

More than two billion people in the world and most households in Uganda depend on wood energy for cooking and/or heating. Yet, huge issues are associated with traditional use of wood fuels – i.a.energy inefficiency, deforestation, the associated increasing time for collection of fuel that largely affects women, deleterious health and environmental effects. As the development of a sustainable national grid has all too long been portrayed as something for the longer term, small-scale solutions will thus be very important in the shorter term, among which efficient biomass stoves and biogas installations. Yet despite the apparent benefits from clean cooking resulting in “dissemination" programs since the 1980’s, many developing country households have been slow to adopt them, largely because the technology transfer was project based rather than focussing on the development of a commercially viable business development. This study takes a qualitative approach and actors-based perspective from the major actors at the supply-side of the clean cooking on biomass market sector. A field research in Uganda, Kampala region, explored the success factors according to local private actors’ perceptions (entrepreneurs, manufacturers and distributors). We established a literature-based success-factor framework completed with the respondents’ experience. They generally confirmed insights in terms of enabling and conditions to strengthen the supply-side, the demand-side and the clean cooking market. First, to become ‘clean cooking champions’ – i.e. commercially viable – is still highly dependent on the role of supportive and intervening development programs, especially in terms of financing (i.a. soft loans and grants), capacity-building and awareness-raising (i.a. via promotion campaigns). Second, today, carbon finance is rather an additional incentive than a determinant factor for business activities in the clean cooking sector. Third, while some policies and targets exist, the crucial regulation (e.g. via quality standards) and implementation in favour of clean cooking in a dire informal cooking energy market is lacking. Thus, public policies will have to overcome the many ‘disabling conditions’ private actors face today., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

This synthesis report documents the implementation process, results and lessons learned under a three-year Technical Assistance (TA) program undertaken by the Water and Sanitation Program of the World Bank’s Water Global Practice (WSP) in Cambodia between May 2013 and June 2016. It also presents recommendations for the government on key steps to accelerate service delivery at scale for Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (RWSSH) and for the World Bank to strategically engage in the sector. For comprehensiveness, annexes are attached that include key supporting documentation, and resources and deliverables developed under this TA are also provided in the resource pack (the resource pack is linked to Box folder which is available upon request).

From 2012 to 2014 water and sanitation service delivery assessments (SDA) have been carried out in seven selected countries in the East Asia and Pacific region under the guidance of the World Bank’s water and sanitation program and with valuable contributions of other development partners, such as United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF), WaterAid, and Asian Development Bank (ADB). Countries where SDA were carried out are Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (PDR), Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam, while in Myanmar, a broad joint sector assessment took place by World Bank, UNICEF, ADB, and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). SDA were implemented as a country-owned process led by key government agencies, and drew on the experience and methodology of similar assessments conducted in more than 40 countries (and states) in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. It has three main components: a review of past water and sanitation access trends, a costing model to assess the adequacy of anticipated future investments, and a scorecard that allows diagnosis of bottlenecks along the service delivery pathways.

Man-made climate change is affecting water infrastructure in all regions of the world, affecting large numbers of people in their daily life and the development of their societies. As part of the World Bank Water Anchor's analytical and advisory work on water and climate change, consultants have investigated how private sector services to infrastructure may address the challenges related to climate change while, at the same time, improving development opportunities for people. This report, which is one of the outcomes of the work, addresses the role of private providers of non-financial climate change-related services with relevance for water infrastructure. This report investigates to need for additional services with regard to climate change and analyzes the potential for the private sector in providing these services. The analysis focuses on the water sectors likely to be affected by climate change, that is, water resources management, irrigation and drainage, hydropower, coastal protection, flood protection, urban water supply, and sanitation as well as water quality. In addition, opportunities for mutual engagement of public and private agencies are analyzed and the perspectives of market development are explored. The central aim of the report is to deepen our understanding of the opportunities for engaging private providers of climate change services in climate change adaptation combined with socioeconomic development opportunities.

The involvement of the rural private sector in water supply in Cambodia is unique to the country. The presence of this private sector allows other entities to respond to new demands from people living in the larger villages for household water supply, which the State is not yet able to address. These entrepreneurs operate on a merchant basis, lacking an institutional structure which is still being created. Their business is most often based on pushcart delivering water barrels at the house of villagers or more recently on small piped networks usually distributing raw surface water. Service is rough; the water quality is uncertain, but the users are satisfied with this service, because for them, it constitutes another alternative to the already considerable choice of water supplies available-ponds, wells, boreholes, and rivers. Their demands focus more on a practical objective (a supply in the household) than on a sanitary one, even if surveys show that villagers have a good understanding of health risks associated with water. Through the implementation of 14 small scale water supply systems, the goal was to enhance a qualitative improvement of the water service in some Cambodian small towns through the transformation of rough and informal merchant services to a basic water service supplying drinking water to an extended population under a formal institutional arrangement. The MIREP (Mini Reseaux d'Eau Potable - Small Scale Piped Water Supply System) program, launched in 2001 to transform these very basic initiatives into basic services, began as a pilot project supporting one entrepreneur in the implementation of a small piped water system. In order to move forward, the MIREP program made a choice, in particular linked to its proximity to the Ministry of rural development, to assist the nascent involvement of communes in decentralization, to strengthen provincial power through the process of decentralization, and to respect the cultural heritage of those who devised and financed the project.

Uganda has placed the fight against corruption high on the development agenda by establishing a range of anti-corruption institutions and strategies. The Uganda third National Integrity Survey, released in 2008 by the Inspectorate of Government, recommended that if Uganda was to make real progress in tackling corruption nationwide, individual sectors would need to undertake sector-specific studies to identify best practice and facilitate scaling-up of anti-corruption efforts. In that year, the good governance sub-sector working group, chaired by the Ministry of Water and Environment, commissioned a water integrity study to establish how citizens in both rural and urban areas contractors, private operators, local government officials and staff from the main water utility experience integrity in the provision of water services. The study would also facilitate development of an updated action plan to address integrity risks. This note describes the key ingredients to putting in place a nationwide good governance action plan in Uganda's water sector, the challenges to be overcome and lessons learned to date. The implications for practice are discussed from the perspectives of policy makers, regulators and ombudsmen, development partners, water service providers and civil society actors. This provides guidance for the replication of best practice by stakeholders in other countries and sectors.