Feb. 6, 2002 -- Building or restoring safe, sustainable and affordable water and wastewater systems - because of the direct connection between these services and public health - is always one of the United Nations' priorities when it comes in to reconstruct a territory after war or other trauma.
Kemira's water treatment division, Kemwater is actively involved in a major project to provide a sound water infrastructure in the troubled region of Kosovo.
"Kemwater Services Oy - a joint venture company owned by Kemira Chemicals and the city of Helsinki - won a bidding competition organised by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs," explains managing director Vesa Ranta-Pere.
The project is financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the competition was between four or five different companies or consortia.
The task is to implement the Water and Sanitation Institution Building Project, and its purpose is "to create strengthened management and technical capacity to operate water utilities efficiently and economically, satisfying the needs of the customers and being accountable to public control."
"The project has two components," explains Ranta-Pere. "First is to establish the Association of Water and Wastewater Utilities, which will be the umbrella body for the 30 or so water utility companies in Kosovo, to act as a centre for help and advice, the dissemination of best practice and expertise, and to represent the industry to government.
"There are many problems, and these are both technical and widespread. Leaking networks, for example, account for a loss of between 50 - 70 per cent of the water in places, and there are problems of unaccounted use. But the biggest problems are institutional, and the Association will address this.
"Our goal is that the individual water companies should be independent, and commercial, with operations based on revenues, rather than subsidies. By 2003 we plan to have covered the operating and maintenance issues, then move on to the investment needs.
"And in all this, we have to make sure that water is affordable - and by that we take the measure that water costs should not be more than 5 per cent of income. Certainly there will be people who will have difficulties paying, but this is where the social services have a role to help; the water companies are not running charities.
"Kemwater Services Oy is acting to facilitate this - we are not so much doing the work, as helping and showing the water companies how to do it themselves, how to start these institutional reforms. The money being put in over the period - some FIM 10 million (EUR 1.7 million) - is mostly being spent on things like computers, literature and handbooks, as well as our expertise."
The company's visible and practical expertise, claims Ranta-Pere, is why it won the contract. "Our people are very well qualified, and very experienced, with hands-on knowledge of similar projects in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Bosnia.
"A particular strength came from the Helsinki Water side, in that we could offer day-to-day experience of exactly the same kind of skills and challenges that we are now putting into practice in Kosovo."
In practical terms, it means that there are two experts permanently in the territory for the duration of the contract - until the end of 2003 - overseeing and ensuring that needs are met; part of this is to identify areas where other experts can be brought in on the short term, and at any given time there may be one or two from Finland working on this basis.
The second component of the project is to set up university level postgraduate education in water supply and engineering for young professionals in the University of Pristina and elsewhere.
"What we are hoping to do here is provide a fund of qualified managers for the future," says Ranta-Pere. "The engineering students exist in linked disciplines including flood control, hydropower, and irrigation, but not in the sanitation and supply areas.
"What we are doing is integrating into the curriculum of the University of Pristina postgraduate studies in these disciplines, up to EU standards and focused on local needs, and already we have 20 students. The individual water companies pay a nominal membership fee for this - it has very little impact on the water tariff. Under the Project we are overseeing the administration until 2003, by which time the University and water companies will take full responsibility."
Since the start of the project last October, much progress has been made on both components of the work in Kosovo. "We are very happy and all is going well," reports Ranta-Pere. "The work took rather longer to establish than we had expected, but now it is operational it is meeting with much enthusiasm and people are very motivated.
"It has been something of a culture shock for the water companies. They were owned and controlled by the municipalities, but now they are becoming more independent and learning to behave more like owners than managers. Who knows, maybe we can even look at privatisation at some stage in the future."
It looks likely there will be a future for Kemwater Services in Kosovo, as well. In early August the company signed a further contract with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) to prepare a study concerning water management policies.
"It's necessary to organise the governmental water administration," explains Ranta-Pere. "Kosovo needs proper institutions to license water permits; it must be clear which government ministry is responsible for water; issues like the division of local, regional and national authority need to be established, along with a mechanism to ensure the public interest is represented.
"The task we have signed up to undertake is to provide the study of how this should be done, and we have to do this by the end of 2001. Then this may lead to new things - as the transition to any new system and infrastructure will have to be managed!"
About Kosovo
Kosovo has an area of just below 11,000 square kilometres and a population (in 1998) of 2.2 million, up to half of whom are served by one of 30 different water utilities serving the major urban areas.
The water infrastructure is showing the signs of years of neglect to its management and maintenance, and lack of investment in its physical infrastructure and human capital. Substantial parts of the system are approaching the end of their useful life. The relatively poor condition of water supply and, especially, wastewater facilities in Kosovo is more the result of lack of maintenance and funds during the period since 1989 (when the autonomous status of Kosovo was cancelled) than due to the 1999 conflict.
The current administrative status of Kosovo is complex. Under the UN Security Council Resolution 1244, it remains a province of Serbia, but is said to have "substantial autonomy and meaningful self-administration", while the "sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" continue to be recognised. The Resolution establishes the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) as the transitional administration - to be replaced over time with democratic self-governing local institutions.
