USAID RDM/A Regional Environment Office Weekly Report Week Ending February 15, 2008

USAID Customer Survey Serves as Model for Promoting Good Governance in Water Sector in China. The USAID ECO-Asia program piloted the first ever customer satisfaction and willingness-to-connect survey covering over 500 households in the municipality of Zhengjian in Jiangsu Province. As a result, the World Bank is requiring Jiangsu to complete further surveys to identify actual user demand as a condition for a planned $150M investment. Based on the survey results, provincial authorities have optimized their investment proposal plans to better reflect actual need. ECO-Asia will support Jiangsu in replicating the survey work in other municipalities, and will help develop guidelines for participatory planning to initiate community engagement in the planning and implementation of water and wastewater services under the World Bank loan.

USAID Establishes “Twinning” Arrangement between Water Utilities in Malaysia and India to Address Intermittent Water Supply in India. The USAID ECO-Asia program facilitated a “twinning” arrangement between Maharashtra Jeevan Pradhikaran (MJP) and Ranhill Utilities Berhad to assist MJP in addressing problems of intermittent water supply. Through this partnership, Ranhill will assist MJP in reducing unaccounted-for water through the application of an innovative district metering approach. MJP will test this new approach, including applying a water audit and network modeling, in Badlapur, and then replicate in 25 other water systems throughout the State of Maharashtra. ECO-Asia will work with the South Asian Water Utilities Network (SAWUN) to disseminate and replicate this experience throughout South Asia.

Royal Thai Government and Community Leaders Participate in National Roundtable on “The Way Forward for Kamphuan". USAID’s Sustainable Coastal Livelihoods (SCL) Project has been working in the community of Kamphuan, Thailand for the last three years and will close at the end of February. The Asian Institute of Technology hosted a roundtable discussion on February 5, 2008 to discuss lessons learned and how to keep the momentum going after the project's conclusion. Twenty-six participants, representing such organizations as Department of Fisheries (DoF), Department of National Parks (DNP), Thailand Environmental Institute (TEI), Thailand International Development Cooperation Agency (TICA), SEAFDEC, AIT, USAID, YMCA, the Keenan Institute, and CHARM, participated in this meeting. A number of community representatives also attended, including the District Governor, Chairman of the Kamphuan Community Learning Center Foundation (KCLC), TAO Chair and the Chairman of the Cooperative Union League of Thailand (CULT). A number of improvements were suggested for future projects and several participants offered propositions on how they could carry forward some of the initiatives started by the SCL. An inventory of proposed activities that participants considered necessary to ensure sustainable development in the area was produced, and all attendants agreed that development momentum must not be allowed to wane at the project's end. A great deal of confidence was placed on KCLC as a legacy to help take community development activities forward and figured prominently in many of the plans by serving as the hub for information and societal interaction.