Two are already online: Hamburg Wasser - Miyahuna (Jordan) and Stadtentwässerung Dresden - Lviv, Nadvirna, Ternopil (Ukraine).

Five more reports will be posted on this page by the end of January 2025.

The follow-up project for the Utility Platform got off to a successful and seamless start in July 2024. The contracts for the utility partnerships have been signed in recent weeks. The Utility Platform currently supports a total of 25 operator partnerships. We would like to thank all utilities for their extraordinary partnership commitment in 2024! We look back on an impressive year full of activities, trips and successes.

In the week from 11 to 15 November 2024, eight German operating companies travelled to their five Zambian partner companies. Together, they deepened existing partnerships and launched new ones. Three of the WOPs are part of the Nexus Energy and Water Programme for Zambia (NEWZA), which will facilitate peer-to-peer cooperation between Zambian and German water utilities.

The Ukraine Conference of the State Government of North Rhine-Westphalia on 18 November 2024 in Cologne offered participants the opportunity to learn about the various facets of reconstruction in Ukraine and to exchange ideas with other experts. StEB Köln and the Bergische Abfallwirtschaftsverband had the opportunity to meet with their partners from Lviv and the Lubenskyi district and present their work.

In 2024, significant steps were taken to improve the wastewater infrastructure in north-eastern Ukraine: a suction vehicle was procured and delivered to Ukraine, high-quality laboratory technology enables better and faster drinking water analyses and the partnership was further strengthened through a meeting at ReBuild Ukraine 4.0 in Warsaw. The second phase of the partnership between the water suppliers from Sumy, Chernihiv and the OOWV aims to exchange knowledge in working groups.

The partnership between Apa Canal Chişinău (ACC), the municipal water company of the capital of Moldova, and Stadtentwässerung Dresden GmbH (SEDD) has been in place since autumn 2023. The cooperation has been expanded and further developed in several reciprocal delegation trips. By discussing operating processes, technologies and future goals, ACC and SEDD are working together to further improve wastewater disposal in their cities.

Thanks to the exchange of expertise between colleagues, training and equipment, the drinking water supply has improved significantly, including efficient fresh water pumps, a new water tank, a solar system, an emergency generator and four ‘Paul’ water backpacks for a hospital, a health centre, a kindergarten and a school. Water losses due to burst pipes and the quality of drinking water are topics for further cooperation.

In May 2024, the Utility Platform was at the IFAT World's Leading Trade Fair for Water, Sewage, Waste and Raw Materials Management in Munich. The trade fair was all about climate change and active environmental protection. Together with our partners, the German Association of Municipal Enterprises (VKU) and the German Water Partnership (GWP), as well as the Export Initiative for Environmental Protection (EXI), we also focussed the discussion on the efforts and achievements of the utility partnerships.

For Volodymyr Bilynskyy from the water supplier Lvivvodokanal in Lviv, the German support is a blessing: ‘Our population has grown by 150,000 people due to the internally displaced persons. We have connected the emergency shelters to the water supply and wastewater disposal systems. A large proportion of the necessary materials came from our German friends. With the emergency power generators supplied, we can also compensate for the power cuts caused by Russian attacks and continue to supply the people here.’ The lead partner is Stadtentwässerung Dresden, which has Stadtentwässerungsbetriebe Köln and Berliner Wasserbetriebe at its side as additional project partners.

The city, which has been badly affected by the Russian war of aggression, is currently lacking the necessary materials, but the employees of ‘Chersonvodokanal’ are risking their lives to try and restore the drinking water supply bit by bit and repair as many leaks as possible. The Bonn aid delivery consists of technical equipment, spare parts and tools financed by federal funding, as well as drinking water pumps and IT equipment from the organisation's own stocks.

As part of the operator partnership between the Bergischer Abfallwirtschaftsverband (BAV) and the Ukrainian waste management association EcoService2022, 500 additional waste containers have been delivered to the Ukrainian region of Poltava. The delivery is part of an ambitious plan to introduce an effective waste management system and separate waste collection in the four Ukrainian municipalities of Pyryatyn, Hrebinka, Novoorzhyzke and Chornuchy.

This good practice provides insights into the work of the utility partnership to achieve the Zambian water utility's goals of reducing water losses by up to 40% by 2025 and improving resilience, reliability and efficiency. Measures include training on occupational safety, surveying data and the safe handling of asbestos pipes. The project also aims to improve the company's GIS data management and monitoring of the sewer network.