The decentralization of the water supply and sanitation network in Russia and other post-Soviet states caused a major drop in the number of  required reports, including the reporting  to the central authority.  At the same time,  the elimination of the centralized supply and funding system made WSS operators quite isolated. Since water suppliers are natural local monopolies, they have no reason whatsoever to compete and feel no urge to 'outperform' one another. Only a handful of them consistently pursue  reforms to improve the situation, while the majority of the plants lag far behind in terms of their practices and technology.

An essential prerequisite of utility development is access to benchmarking data on the main utility performance indicators. The easiest way to gain access to this data is through the World Bank's Benchmarking Start-up Kit.

The Institute for Urban Economics, with the organizational support of the OECD ЕАР Task Force and financial assistance from the German and Finnish Ministries of Environment, performed an indicative survey (the "Survey") of municipal water and sewage utilities in four constituent entities of the Russian Federation (Krasnodar Krai and the Leningrad, Perm and Samara Oblasts) and several other areas of Russia.

Survey indicators characterized the extent of water and sewerage services coverage, the technical and financial condition of water utilities, and the economic and environmental aspects of efficient water use. The survey data provided benchmarking information on WSS activities crucial to understanding the operation of this sector and monitoring deviations.

WSS indicators are important tools, which enable stakeholders to make competent decisions since  the indicators:

• help utility managers identify problems, set valid objectives and formulate arguments supporting their implementation, and develop realistic investment plans;
• provide regional and local authorities with reliable information on trends and investment requirements;
• may be used by consumers to assess the financial discipline of the utility and its quality of service;
• provide potential investors and shareholders with information about utility management quality and potential viability;
• enable international donors to identify priority areas of involvement, investment support and technical assistance.

The Survey had the following objectives:

• collect information on the condition and operating results of water and sewage utilities;
• analyze the performance results of utilities by region and nationwide;
• compare the findings for Russian WSS utilities with other countries' data;
• identify utilities that potentially qualify for subsequent financial assistance via reconstruction/development projects.

For organizational purposes, the information on utility condition and performance results was translated into standard indicators designed and commonly used by the World Bank. The following sets of indicators were selected for this project:

• technical and technological indicators;
• economic indicators;
• service quality indicators;
• indicators of service availability to consumers;
• utility environmental impact indicators.

The Survey was administered under the following conditions:

• all utilities covered by the Survey volunteered for participation;
• the participating utilities provided information required for the computation of indicators under no obligation to submit all the information requested
• the Institute for Urban Economics did not perform a full verification of the supplied data on water and sewage operators' performance  results proceeding from the underlying assumption that all information provided by utilities was fair and accurate

Results of Indicative Survey

Publications