For all of us who have been working in water for the last 15 years or more, 2015 was year 1, the target year for the Millennium Development Goals. For many countries, the data showed great progress: from 1990 to 2012, 2.3 billion people gained access to improved water sources and almost 2 billion to improved sanitation.

However, there is no room for complacency—today more than 700 million people, still use unimproved drinking water sources; and some 2.5 billion people unimproved sanitation facilities. The numbers are much worse among the most vulnerable segments of society and in the most remote areas of our world.

The Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the 70th UN General Assembly, specifically Goal No. 6, seeks to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by the year 2030 which means governments should work not just on ensuring service quality. They must also reduce wastewater pollution, strengthen water governance, boost efficiency in the use of water resources, and protect our liquid natural capital.

AquaRating is an international standard that enables water and sanitation operators to focus on the quality of the service they are providing. As a standard, AquaRating sets the baseline for utilities to monitor their performance and plan for improvements. Jointly developed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the International Water Association (IWA), AquaRating offers a comprehensive, impartial and credible evaluation of the utilities’ performance and best management practices, based on three dimensions: (i) performance indicators; (ii) best practices; and (iii) reliability of information.

The AquaRating system gives a detailed evaluation of 112 elements across eight key areas and validates information through an independent auditing process, enhancing accountability and transparency. The evaluation system has been tested in 13 utilities in 2014 in nine countries in Europe and Latin America and is currently being implemented through individual operators in Ecuador, El Salvador, Argentina and Spain and through government and financial institutions in Peru, Colombia and Mexico, Sierra Leone and Fiji. AquaRating makes a significant contribution to improving utility performance and a roadmap to anticipate future challenges, bringing us a step forward meeting the Water 2030 agenda. The rating system allows for better planning and decision making processes for the utilities’ management to achieve sustainable and efficient outcomes.

You will have the opportunity to know how AquaRating is transforming the management of water and sanitation utilities in any of the upcoming events:

Free Webinar on Aquarating

17 October – 13:00 CET

During this webinar, participants will:
– better understand how to evaluate water and sanitation services in an integrated way and getting an aggregated final score;
– learn more about accurate characterization and management of water and sanitation utilities;
– become familiar with very different cases of utilities assessed in different continents, main benefits, achievements and lessons learned;
– discover the AquaRating performance assessment methodology;
– ask questions to a panel list of international experts on the topic.

Workshop at the IWA Water and Development Congress & Exhibition, Buenos Aires, Argentina

How water utilities can improve their performance using AquaRating?

14 November – 15:30 – 17:00 – Courtyard

In this session the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) will explain the nature and benefits of the AquaRating evaluation system and how it is transforming the water and sanitation sector.  Experiences of various water and sanitation operators in the Latin America and Caribbean region, which have applied AquaRating in their utilities, will be shared.