Activities in Iraq

Baghdad Water on Improvement of Institutional & Financial Set-up

Iraq, where the one of the oldest civilizations was born, has historically enjoyed considerable amount of water resources with two big river systems despite the fact that its annual precipitation is less than 200mm in most of its territory. Number of dams and reservoirs as well as water treatment facilities had been constructed during 60's to 80's that enabled to develop large scale irrigations throughout the basins and supply treated water to the most of the citizens in urban areas.

However, due to the constructions of huge dams in the upper streams and lack of coordination system among neighboring countries, the available water has been decreased drastically. Chronic conflicts since 80's, the economic sanctions and the looting after the recent war have made situation much worse.

Compared to the available water before the Gulf War, amount of unit water supply has been declined by 30% in the urban area and about half in the rural area.

Water leakage and inefficient operation and maintenance practices are affecting much to the shortage. Though the water treatment capacity in Baghdad Mayoralty is about 2.3MCM, about 50 to 60 % of treated water is reported to be non-revenue-water (NRW). Rehabilitation of facilities such as water treatment plants, pipelines and meters are urgently needed. Introduction of appropriate technical measures through technical assistance are no less important to maximize and sustain the service delivery.

Efficiency of administration and management of water authorities is another crucial issue. Laws and regulatory frameworks need to be reviewed and adjusted to the requirements of current circumstances. Considering the fact that only 10% of consumers in Baghdad are equipped with meters, and water income does not satisfy even the cost for operation and maintenance, financial set-up, especially tariff scheme and billing system, has to be studied and improved immediately.

Purposes and expected outcomes:
The purpose of this program (IIF) is to study the current institutional and financial set up of the Baghdad Water Authority (BWA), and propose feasible measures for improvement of its efficiency.

• Participants are expected to:
  (1) Collect data on laws and regulation, accounting and finance, tariff and billing data and bring them to the training,
  (2) Understand and get familiarized with concept of (a) laws and regulations (water policy, laws and regulations, organizational arrangement), (b) finance and accounting (financial analysis and planning, accounting, asset management, procurement and contract), (c) tariff and billing (watering contract, metering, billing and collection, tariff scheme),
  (3) Discuss and study the problems of current laws and regulations, finance and accounting system, tariff and billing system in Baghdad, and propose a feasible measures for improvement,

• Training Title: Improvement of Financial and Institutional Set-up (IIF)

1^st Stage:

• Duration: 3 ~ 10 July, 2006
• Number of Participants: 10

2^nd Stage:

• Duration: 10 ~ 14 Dec, 2006
• Number of Participants: 8

3^rd Stage:

• Duration: 6 ~ 12 Feb, 2007
• Number of Participants: 10

• Course Description (PDF/100KB)
• Press Release
• Reports
  Report and Action Plan for improvement of institutional capacity of Baghdad Water (PDF/86KB)