Projects

Short Description:

Overall goal

The overall objective of the project is to conduct an assessment to identify and value existing water supply and sewerage (WSS) system assets in so-called “Out of Service Areas” and “White Areas” in Albania.

Expected results

The project aims at providing a report on data collected in each village including data on the existing water supply and wastewater assets and a documentation of each of the systems specific physical data. In addition, a report on the current replacement costs of each system element and for each building that is related to a system element identified is available, and the value of the land associated with the buildings and other system elements is determined. Options for data sharing and processing with other ongoing and planned activities in the WSS sector and the access of collected data for water sector actors and consumers are identified. Furthermore, specifications of services, investments, time frame for a selected option for further data sharing and processing are prepared.

Target group / Beneficiaries

The project will benefit the 61 local government units (LGUs) which are responsible for the physical inventory, valuation and registration of the WSS facilities, so far not organized as joint stock companies, in the asset and accounting structure of the WSS utilities of the municipality. The project will target the population of about 730.000 persons so far living in “Out of Service Areas” and “White Areas” in the 9 regions covered by this assignment: Diber, Durres, Elbasan, Fier, Korca, Kukes, Lezhe, Shkoder, and Vlora. The project supports in a mid and long term the efforts to sustainably manage already existing WSS infrastructure in these communes by integration into registered water utilities, and the integration of the population not serviced so far into the national and local WSS sector planning which will lead to service provision in future.

Activities

The assessment to be developed under this project will document and valuate the existing WSS system assets that exist in the remaining “Out of Service Areas” and “White Areas” communes in Albania. This assessment is designed to document assets in a total of 1,727 villages in Albania. The documentation shall comprise an inventory of the existing WSS assets and a documentation of each of the systems, recording specific physical data, in the field. Furthermore, the current value for the land directly associated with the asset, the replacement value for all system elements and the book value of all system elements according to the accounting standards and valuation methodologies accepted for use in Albania will be determined. In order to ensure that all the collected data and produced outputs are used and processed in the best possible way the assessment shall analyse relevant water sector activities, possible links and potential activities for further data processing and accessibility of collected data for the relevant stakeholders.

Context

The WSS services sector in Albania has functioned, more recently, as a rather fragmented service sector with 58 WSS utilities licensed to service an estimated 80% of the population of the country. These utilities are formally licensed by the Water Regulatory Commission (ERRU) for the provision of services in defined geographic areas. The other 20% of the population reside in the former communes that are not defined to be in the licensed service area of any formal, licensed utility, and therefore lack clear servicing policy, data collection, monitoring and regulation. However, there are water supply systems within the licensed service area of the existing utilities that receive no services from these utilities and therefore are referred to as “Out of Service Area”. Additionally, there are so called “White Areas”, which are those areas which are completely outside the licensed service areas of the utilities. The available data suggests that this officially unserved population totals almost 900,000 people or over 32 % of the population of the country. In order to address one of the key sector reform challenges - the proper WSS asset management - the Government of Albania (GoA) requested the Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC) to provide further support in documenting the existing WSS system assets that exist in the remaining “Out of Service Areas” and “White Areas” in Albania.