Financing and implementing District and City Water Safety Plans

Access to safe and affordable drinking water is a fundamental right for all people. The government, as a duty bearer, is obliged to fulfil it. Providing access to drinking water remains the most significant challenge faced by the drinking water sector in Indonesia. The 2020 National Socio-Economic Survey (SUSENAS), sampling 320 000 households, concluded that 90.2% of Indonesian households have access to an improved drinking water source. The result of the 2020 Household Drinking Water Quality Study (Balitbangkes, 2020) surveying 21 476 households, showed, that only 11.9% of households have access to safe drinking water. In other words, from 21 476 households that have access to improved drinking water that were surveyed, only around 2 500 fulfil safe drinking water requirements, namely: located inside the house or in the yard of the house, accessible whenever needed, and most importantly meet drinking water quality requirements, as regulated in the Minister of Health Regulation No. 492 of 2010.

Fig. 1. Ministries discussed the significance of Water Safety Plans to achieve the national targets of 90 cities and districts having safe water supply by 2025. Photo Credit: Indah Deviyanti/WHO Indonesia 

A water safety plan (WSP) is a risk management tool that allows early mitigation of hazardous contamination with the potential to harm human health all the way from the source to the tap, so that health risks can be prevented. The WSPs require management plans that document the system assessment and regular monitoring and describe actions to be taken in normal operation and incident conditions. By applying the WSPs, the drinking water operation process can be optimized. Scaling-up the implementation of WSPs is one of the goals of the 2020-2024 National Mid-Term Development Plan (RPJMN). The targets encourage the expansion of their performance and the acceleration of achieving the target on universal access to safe, equitable, and affordable drinking water by 2030. The WSP Roadmap was jointly launched by Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas), Ministry of Public Works and Housing, Ministry of Home Affairs, and Ministry of Health, and outlines the strategy to escalate WSP implementation.

Through WHO support, Bappenas in collaboration with the Indonesia Association of Drinking Water Providers (Persatuan Perusahaan Air Minum Seluruh Indonesia-Perpamsi) conducted a workshop on mainstreaming WSPs in the regional planning and budgeting document. This activity aimed to advocate for the local government at provincial, district and municipality levels to link actions related to water safety and drinking water quality surveillance to the planning and budgeting process. The two-day workshop was conducted on 28-29 March 2022, with over 100 participants representing 18 provinces from three Provincial Development Planning Agencies (Bappeda), 30 district/municipalities’ Bappeda, representatives from 41 local drinking water providers (Perumdam), and implementing partners like Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Indonesia Australia Partnership for Infrastructure (KIAT), USAID, and the World Bank.

Fig. 2.Participants from the Development Planning Agency from province, district and municipality offices discussing the WSPs planning and budgeting for 2022. Photo Credit: Indah Deviyanti/WHO Indonesia

The workshop was opened by Ms Tri Dewi Virgiyanti, Director of Housing and Settlement. She highlighted that provision of safe drinking water at the local level is a shared responsibility of provincial, district/municipalities and water service providers. The implementation of WSPs requires funding sources and commitment from all relevant sectors to strengthen the capacity of water providers and to ensure the supply of safe water to the citizens and communities.

Fig. 3. Director of Housing and Settlement, Bappenas provided opening remarks at the workshop. Photo Credit: Indah Deviyanti/WHO Indonesia

Participants from provincial and district governments agreed to support a coordination mechanism for the planning and budgeting process to support WSP activities at the regional technical level (Dinas PU, Dinas Kesehatan, Perumdam). They also recognized the roles of the existing subnational task force and the environmental health task force (Pokja AMPL), to promote and monitor WSP implementation at the local level. 

 As a follow up of this workshop, Bappenas is now working with Perpamsi to develop a national guideline on WSP planning and budgeting to provide an example of a list of activities based on the WSP approach proposed in the regional planning documents. This document is expected to be ready for dissemination by the end of 2022.

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