Context
In many German partner countries, municipal utilities providing public goods and services such as water and waste disposal are in poor economic shape. As a result, their service provision is only unreliable or does not reach the entire population.
Due to the war, utilities in Ukraine are finding it particularly difficult to maintain operations, restore destroyed technology and bring new plants up to European Union standards. In the face of climate change, growing cities and digitalisation, utility companies in Germany and its partner countries are facing similar challenges in order to continue providing their services.
Objective
The conditions have been created for the sustainable anchoring of operator partnerships as an instrument of the German development cooperation.
Approach
The Utility Platform supports 30 partnerships between German municipal utilities and operators in Zambia, Tanzania, South Africa, Jordan, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Albania in the water and waste sector. The project promotes close exchange on topics such as corporate management and on operating and maintaining plants. Technical advice, mutual visits, job shadowings, virtual meetings and the procurement of technology, particularly for Ukraine, form the core of the cooperation between the companies.
The project has also established a logistics hub that dispatches donations and procurements from German utility companies to their Ukrainian counterparts. In addition to the donations, the logistics partner Go Local also transports the goods that are procured for Ukrainian utilities as part of the 14 solidarity operator partnerships.
The Utility Platform is being developed and implemented in cooperation with the German Association of Local Utilities (VKU) and German Water Partnership (GWP).