Introduction

Netherlands Institutional support for Egyptian Water Supply and Sanitation Service providers

The Netherlands first became involved in Egypt’s drinking water and sanitation sector in 1977 when it approved a grant of EUR 1.13 million to the Alexandria Water General Authority for procurement of pumps and related parts. This type of programme aid was phased out in the early 1990s when Egypt’s foreign currency position improved substantially and the Netherlands became increasingly aware of the need for technical assistance to address the sector’s institutional weaknesses. Ultimately, total hardware and input supply funding amounted to EUR 32.9 million. In 1990 agreement was reached on the funding of two major technical assistance projects: the Alexandria Water General Authority Maintenance Project (AMP) and the Fayoum Drinking Water and Sanitation Project (FaDWaSP).
This timeline describes the developments during the 5 phases of the project from 1990 to 2011. The more recent and expected future developments are also summarized.

This timeline was created by the Team Leaders of the 5 Project Phases: Ad Sannen, Cees Vulto, Jeroen van Luijk and Herrie Heckman.

The thrust of both projects was to strengthen the institutional performance of the recipient organisations through on-the-job training, technical studies and advice. The AMP had a relatively narrow scope of work focusing mainly on water treatment plant operation and maintenance practices.

The Fayoum project was a much longer term, more intensive effort to address a broad range of technical, financial and managerial constraints affecting performance of the main responsible organisation for drinking water supply and sanitation in Fayoum. The types of technology pursued are capital-intensive surface water treatment plants, wastewater treatment plants, piped transfer, distribution and sewerage systems and house connections. The total Dutch contribution through FaDWaSP (including Phase V to 2011 and covering capital finance contributions as well as technical assistance) has been EUR 44.3 million. In addition, the government of Egypt has contributed some EUR 48 million.

FaDWaSP was extended four times and had all together 5 phases up to 2011.

Egypt started reforming its drinking water and sanitation sub-sector in the 1990s. Three presidential decrees issued in 2004 shaped the reform process. Decree 135 mandated the formation of a National Holding Company for Water and Wastewater (HCWW), to be responsible for the operation and management of water supply and wastewater services, and the transformation of the then 14 Economic General Authorities into subsidiaries of the new HCWW. Decree 136 mandated the formation of the Egyptian Water and Wastewater Regulatory Authority, with the aim of balancing the interests of companies and customers while promoting commercially viable water and wastewater utilities. Decree 1/1/6/4 mandated the creation of subsidiary companies under the control of HCWW elsewhere in Egypt, where responsibility for the sector still rested with the governorates.

The Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2008 started an impact evaluation of the drinking water and sanitation programme supported by the Netherlands in Fayoum Governorate, Arab Republic of Egypt, covering the period since 1990. The report was published in May 2010.

The IOB report can be downloaded from the following link.

IOB report.pdf