“As Arab countries, we have much of the same development issues, so we can learn most from each other“ this statement from Eng. Khaldon Khashman, Secretary General of the Arab Countries Water Utilities Association (ACWUA), best describes the rational for a meeting on the participation of Syrian water establishments within the association. The meeting took place on April 29th  at the Headquarters of the Damascus Water Establishment (DAWSSA). Dr. Kamal Al Shiekha, the Deputy Minister of Housing and Construction, and Dr. Moawaffak Khalouf, General Director of DAWSSA, were present at the meeting to discuss options for engagement together with representatives from almost all water establishments, DAWSSA and GTZ.
Syria was offered to be chairman of one of the working groups during ACWUA’s last meeting in Morocco in February this year. The working group on “Utility Reform” will be chaired by Dr. Khlaouf and discuss issues such as financial planning, regulation, decentralization, commercialization and PPPs.
ACWUA is a regional center of excellence that partners with water supply and wastewater utilities in Arab countries to provide best practice service delivery to their customers. The Secretary General stressed that “Capacity building is the main service we provide”. This was fully consistent with the comments from representatives of the establishments who highlighted the need for training on issues such as non-revenue water, protection of groundwater resources and wastewater treatments.
Asked of the unique feature of ACWUA versus other water associations, the Secretary General highlighted that it “deals with challenge on the interface between establishments and customer and not with international issues, such as shared rivers”.
Three Syrian establishments are scheduled to join ACWUA this year with joint financing from the Ministry of Housing and Construction and GTZ.

The presentation of Eng. Khaldon Khashman, Secretary General of ACWUA can be downloaded here

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