Davao is unusual as it is called a city but the service area is very large - stretching over 244,000 hectares including significant peri-urban and rural areas. Consequently, it is not economically feasible to provide 24/7 piped water coverage to 100% of its population dispersed in its mountainous area. Those not currently receiving piped water (level 3) either receive water distributed by Barangay service units (level 2) or their own ground water or rainwater sources (level 1).
Davao is a growing city (2.8% per annum) and has a total population of around 1.4 million. DCWD serves 56% of the population, which involves about 151,000 connections, all metered. Water source is predominantly ground water from 48 points of supply but there is some surface water supply, currently less than 5% of the total demand.
In general, DCWD’s management practices are good - with change management underway and a culture of customer focus and using performance indicators to drive change. DCWD has two very useful customer service features - one is a 24 answering service through its Customer Information Unit that is on hand to take queries on services as well as leakage reports and the other is the provision of public information through brochures, calendars, fridge magnets and even TV, radio and the press.
NRW is a major concern of DCWD estimated between 28-33% based on present measurement methods. This excludes production losses (those incurred between the well extraction point and the exit point of the last storage facility before water is reticulated to end customers). To address NRW reduction DCWD has set up a cross organizational committee. This NRW Committee was linked with the four Continuous Improvement and Benchmarking (CIB) teams formed under the ADB program. All teams are focused on addressing specific processes and services that can contribute to the incidence of NRW.
Expert twin Ranhill and ADB conducted a diagnostic visit from April 29 to May 2, 2008 and agreed with DCWD on the targeted areas for Twinning support described below. Davao has NRW as a strategic priority and it is this area that Ranhill considers it can strongly contribute. Consequently a work plan has been developed to accommodate these priorities:
a) NRW Committee support - starting with assisting in defining a comprehensive set of interlinked reports that will enable NRW to be tracked over time and by system, by major contributing factors and by effect of various remedial efforts;
b) Metering - assist in reviewing meter management practices in more depth - and to do this in conjunction with the CIB team examining metering maintenance practices (which should include replacement and procurement policy);
c) Distribution System Maintenance - advise CIB team handling distribution maintenance on the potential for applying preventative maintenance in the context of Davao operations.
This twinning is facilitated by Asian Development Bank.
