Water New Zealand renews its Memorandum of Understanding with the Pacific Water and Wastewater Association

This month Water New Zealand reaffirmed our relationship with our sister organisation, the Pacific Water and Waste Association, through a renewal of a Memorandum of Understanding. The Pacific Water and Wastewater Association (PWWA) is the leading professional water body of the Pacific, representing 28 utilities operating water and wastewater schemes in 22 of the pacific islands.

The MoU renewal occurs triennially, providing an opportunity to reassess where areas of mutual collaboration may lie. The PWWA vision of ‘shaping a cohesive, proficient and robust Pacific water sector’ and strategic goals related to skills development, representation, collaboration and upholding of standards, is well aligned with the activities and strategic intent of Water New Zealand. In addition, our two associations also share a number of members - of the 59 companies who are allied PWWA members, 26 come from New Zealand.

New Zealand and the Pacific have much to teach each other. The renewed MoU references the benchmarking activities covered by both agencies and a commitment to publishing these on the IBNET platform, allowing performance comparisons to be made across utilities in New Zealand and the Pacific. The data shines light on areas where there are opportunities for collaboration; for instance, New Zealand leads the Pacific in areas such as managing water loss, while in water metering we significantly trail a number of our pacific island counterparts.

In addition, the MoU signals both agencies intention to continue long-standing collaboration in areas of member communication, information transfer, and conference participation. These initiatives provide a platform for exchanging knowledge on the many challenges facing the Pacific and New Zealand water sectors; revenue, asset maintenance, and rising sea levels to name but a few. At Water New Zealand we welcome the MoUs formalisation of our intention to work with our PWWA to improve water and wastewater services across the Pacific region.

Water New Zealand

MoU PWWA.pdf

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05 Feb 2016