Another Round of successful MBI Water Services Master Classes!

The fifth round of Water Services Master Classes (WSMCs) was held during March 2017 in Durban, Bloemfontein and Cape Town, with 173 persons registering for WSMC 5, and 132 persons attending (excluding the MBI team), which reflects the realities of municipal time pressures. Municipal participation in this WSMC was 87% of total attendance (i.e. 115 persons).

The WSMC 5 aimed to build on earlier Master Classes and included municipal and sector leaders demonstrating the value of improved sharing of municipal data and aligned benchmarks and targets across the range of MBI water services performance improvement efforts. All municipalities (regardless of maturity of participation level) were invited to attend the WSMCs. The primary target audience was Senior Water Services Technical and Management Staff. Costs per delegate were covered by SALGA / WRC, with municipal officials required to cover travel and accommodation. Attendance of the WSMC was worth 2 CPD points. Attendees who registered by the registration cut-off date received a certificate of attendance at the venue following successful completion of the WSMC.

The MBI team, SALGA and the WRC, considered participant requests at previous WSMCs and developed a programme to address needs and challenges. The morning of Day One focused on practical benchmarking based processes including measuring and understanding current performance, and developing performance improvement plans to improve water services, while the afternoon focused on water safety planning and wastewater risk abatement planning, and included an exercise on assessing a water safety plan. Day Two included a practical learning experience via a site visit in the morning, while the afternoon allowed for an improved understanding of water conservation and demand management by groups completing a water balance and associated performance indicators exercise, and also provided for a facilitated interaction around integrated risk management.

The main aims and objectives of the WSMC 5 included:

• To provide information on the basic requirements for an effective and sustainable water and sanitation services programme.
• To transfer the knowledge, information and lessons learnt from experiences.
• To impart the necessary tools to assist in improving the quality of life with respect to the supply of water and sanitation.

The associated learning outcomes of the WSMC included obtaining an understanding of the following:

• Understanding and addressing water services vulnerabilities in accordance with the Medium Term Strategic Framework’s 5-Year Reliable Water and Sanitation Services Plan.
• Using the Municipal Priority Action Plan (MPAP) to improve performance.
• Understanding Water Safety Planning and Wastewater Risk Abatement Planning.
• Understanding the importance of Integrated Risk Management.

Additional MBI team objectives of the WSMC 5 were to:

• Get feedback on draft PIs as captured within Draft Municipal Scorecards, and encourage municipalities to review/update/verify associated data.
• Train municipalities in the new Munibench features.
• Continue to generate awareness, interest and enthusiasm from municipalities (especially amongst those who have not previously attended an MBI event).

Durban

Bloemfontein

Cape Town

Overall feedback from municipal participants is shown below.

Combined Feedback – Durban, Bloemfontein and Cape Town

The above clearly shows that the general sentiment from municipal participants was overwhelming positive in terms of content, pace, professional development and networking opportunities. Attendance also earned participants 2 CPD points. The project team aims to build on this success and continue to produce WSMCs that both interest municipalities, and help them improve performance.

Municipalities can access the WSMC 5 presentations via Munibench by following the instructions below:

• Go to Munibench and enter in your username/password. If you do not yet have a username/password, please contact the MBI team.
• Click on the “Resources” tab.
• The available Resources will be displayed.
• Navigate to the MBI Master Class 5 folder.
• Select a session of your choice, and select the presentation you need.
• Your selected presentation (pdf document) will open. You can then save/print.

Thank you to all for attending and actively participating in WSMC 5. We look forward to welcoming you to WSMC 6!