These problems need to be addressed; frequent water shortages and other related problems are otherwise likely to be seen in Yangon City. Four policy opportunities can be considered by the Yangon City Development Committee, to improve the sustainability of the city’s water provision.

a) Redesign the existing water service provision scheme to provide for all communities regardless of their social and economic status

This would need short-term and long-term approaches. In the short term, the municipality could set up a communal tap water supply system, or small water provision; these can be done through collaboration with the community and should be governed by the community; there could also be cooperation with informal water vendors. In the long-term, a coordinated, multi-sectoral effort is needed, which includes both top-down and bottom-up approaches. The former would be inclusive urban development policies, including effective coordination of different agencies to address the informal settlements and related problems including land ownership. The bottom-up approaches would involve community mobilization and advocacy.

b) Increase the service coverage – while focusing on non-revenue water reduction – to reduce groundwater use, plus carefully invest in the water (supply) sector

There are two areas that warrant special attention: reducing non-revenue water and water leakages, and designing a service charge collection process. First, non-revenue water (NRW) should be addressed by controlling physical losses, ensuring customers’ meter accuracy and making all efforts to keep the number of illegal connections within limits. As the NRW rate is high, taking these measures could boost revenue as well as make more water available while increasing the service coverage and reinvestment at the same time. Therefore, YCDC should invest more in NRW reduction and water network expansion. Second, integrating (and replacing) the existing door-to-door water tariff collection system with an ICT-based payment system would definitely play a key role. It will have positive implications, for example, by reducing the workload of the department as well as saving the water – these kinds of benefits are already seen in Taunggyi through its application of ICT in water utility payments.

c) Develop a comprehensive water supply policy that reflects the sustainability concept through a participatory deliberative process

A comprehensive water supply policy should be developed through a participatory deliberative process. Policy development can come from the application of futures thinking while reflecting the sustainability concept – considering social, economic, environmental and political dimensions – at the same time. The Urban Planning Department & Water Supply Department of YCDC and JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency), for example, should lead such a deliberation process, which, generally speaking, involves a wide range of actors – decision-makers, experts, different interest groups and citizens – in the deliberative decision-making process at various stages. For example, a given deliberative process could include decision-makers such as union, regional, and city agencies; experts including JICA, ADB (Asia Development Bank), UN Habitat; interested groups from the private sector and civil society, think tanks, as well as research and academic institutions; the public who are interested and affected as well as marginalized stakeholders including women and youth, etc.

d) Improve water-related governance, from national to the local levels, to enhance the sustainability of water service provision

Two tasks must be done to improve water governance. First, the current water governance performance should be assessed by using, for example, the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) Indicators on Water Governance framework, in which NWRC (National Water Resource Committee), JICA & ADB can play leading roles to make this task happen. As leading actors, they could focus on three main parts: assessing the existing performance related to the water sector; setting up the designated goals; and creating an action plan to reach the goals, which could be short term, mid-term & long term. In addition, the OECD Principles on Water Governance could be used to improve water governance-related policy and strategies. Second, the city should adopt a collaborative and/or coordinated multi-level governance approach along with setting up a stronger institutional setting for water-related management. Generally speaking, in this case, there would be four levels: union level; regional level; city level; and local level. Additionally, there should be both vertical and horizontal coordination or collaboration among and within levels, as they would have different roles and responsibilities – for example, strategy and planning; policy implementation; financing; monitoring; stakeholder engagement; service provision; operational management; and information sharing.

In conclusion, water supply problems need to be addressed for sustainable water provision for all. More importantly, however, the approach should be broader than a purely technical perspective: the expansion of more water resources, building more water treatment plants, and so forth. As much as possible, different dimensions including social, economic, environmental, and political considerations should be taken into account. Public participation has been hardly seen amongst policy-making circles in Myanmar for quite some time. It is, therefore, time to nurture this kind of practice starting from the city’s policy-making process to the country’s, and Yangon should play a leading role in encouraging public participation on policy issues.