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World Bank to fund water project
The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved yesterday a US$
112 million concessional credit to help bring piped water to around 1
million residents in towns and cities across Viet Nam.
The credit will help fund Viet Nam’s Urban Water Supply Development
project, which aims to improve water and household sanitation services
in district towns and large urban centers to enhance the nation’s
health and economic potential.
“The Project will work to connect households to piped water in 135
hitherto unserved district towns and will enhance delivery services in
four additional cities,” said Klaus Rohland, Director of the World
Bank in Viet Nam. “In the long term, it will contribute to VietNam’s
ambitious goal of ensuring that urban residents will be able to access
120-150 litres of clean water every day by the year 2020”.
In the district towns, the project will introduce competitive biding
among companies to design, build and operate new water supply systems.
Project designs will follow Viet Nam’s national development scheme and
provide for significant participation… by and consultation with the
beneficiaries.
The first phase will benefit 15 district towns in three provinces and
an estimated 145,000 residents. The second phase includes up to 120
towns in 24 provinces and is expected to benefit another 740,000
people. Households receiving the new water supplies will also be able
to borrow small sums from project funds to build sanitation
facilities. In the four city areas, the project will focus on
successful provincial water supply companies, with an aim to improve
their services, expand their coverage and increase their capacities.
A separate component will channel funds through the Development
Assistance Fund to lend money for water supply and sanitation
infrastructure projects of technically and financially qualified
public or private water supply companies.
The project will develop standard procedures to improve key management
practices in participating water supply companies. The procedures will
also be developed for assessing and improving the performances of
water supply entities that are not eligible for participation under
the current project so that they can become eligible for future
funding.
Finally, the project will hire a range of consultants to assist in
project implementation, including system design, construction
supervision, independent safe guards to oversee residential
resettlement, environmental management and financial auditing
Source: Vietnam News
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