How can Ukrainian water utilities optimise their services? And how can their German partners support them in this? The German-Ukrainian utility partnership is using the answers to these questions as a basis for drawing up an ambitious work plan. This will cover not only technical water supply and sanitation issues, but also commercial issues concerning cost-covering charges and investment procedures.

The project

When the utility partnership began, the focus was on one partner in western Ukraine – Lvivvodokanal – and the joint work was designed accordingly. The COVID-19 pandemic caused restrictions in many respects, and hampered the progress of the project.

The project has been ongoing for a year, and we have gained substantial insights into the condition and working practices of one water utility in Ukraine. Based on this and the joint discussions with all project participants, it is clear that the challenges facing Ukrainian water and sanitation utilities are basically similar. To identify solutions, the partners need to jointly discuss various areas of work. These include:

• Cost-covering charges
  
  The income which utilities generate from water and sanitation charges is barely sufficient to cover their costs for operating the pipe system, the sewage treatment plants and various other facilities. The partners therefore plan to produce guidelines on how best to calculate realistic charges. Based on these guidelines, they intend to initiate a dialogue with the policy-makers who set the charges.
   
• Recruitment and staff training
  
  Like German water municipalities, water utilities in Ukraine also face difficulties in meeting their demand for skilled workers. Their employees are on average between 55 and 65 years old, wages are usually low, and the job profiles are not very attractive for well qualified young people. They are therefore sharing ideas on how they can incentivise employees to stay on, and how they can present themselves to applicants as attractive employers.
   
• Optimising infrastructure and processes
  
  The personnel costs for maintenance of the sewerage network are very high. There is major potential for savings here. The utilities are planning technical training courses on topics such as water loss reduction, compliance with quality standards and sewage sludge processing. The participants will be trained to scale up and disseminate their newly acquired knowledge. Sustainable investments and a modern infrastructure management system could save a great deal of energy in the future.

Expanding the operator partnership

The expansion of the existing utility partnership with Lvivvodokanal to include the Ternopil and Nadvirna water utilities is fundamentally in line with the principle of neighbourly assistance, and will support a sustainable water management strategy for small and medium-sized municipal operators in western Ukraine. Synergies in the sharing of knowledge and lessons learned, for example through advisory services, workshops and training, are a core component of the utility partnership and are largely determined by Ukrainian needs.

Establishing an effective network between the utilities on the Ukrainian side (including the Ukrovodokanalekologyja association, which is the interface to the policy-making bodies), will enable sustainable solutions to be implemented and monitored. To achieve these objectives, synergy effects must be leveraged.

This forward-looking construct is seen as the cornerstone of a potential network of regional water utilities in (western) Ukraine, which would aim to significantly improve water supply and sanitation management. Initially, the partners in Ukraine will function as multipliers for other actors in the water supply and sanitation sector in the country. In the long run, they should be enabled to continue this work beyond the scope of this project.

A forced strategic reorientation

Since February 2022, the utility partnership with Ukraine has faced the stressful situation of the Russian escalation of the war of aggression. Unfortunately, project work as originally planned is no longer possible. Regular dialogue between the partners takes place primarily online, and at non-fixed intervals. The partnership is heavily dependent on the limited scope of action of our Ukrainian colleagues. Depending on the availability of electricity, and mindful of air raid alerts and the ad-hoc deployment of our Ukrainian colleagues to maintain water supply and sanitation, the two sides are trying out creative solutions to conduct a condensed professional discourse on the key topics agreed in the partnership. It is essential to adjust and reduce the core topics, and focus on the procurement of urgently needed technical equipment. This will be realigned flexibly with the prevailing war conditions.

Travelling from Ukraine to Germany is made more difficult with a considerable amount of bureaucratic application, which is not always promising, but may have to be cancelled shortly before it starts. It is becoming increasingly difficult for male staff members to leave the country and there is little prospect of success.

In consultation with the Ukrainian partner companies, a lively and constant exchange about the content of the cooperation and implementation possibilities led to the new focus of the utility partnership on the important role of women in water management. Accordingly, the partnership follows the approach of "strengthening women in water management" and focuses in its working meetings on the professional competences of the female employees, which are primarily located in the commercial and laboratory-technical areas.