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To guide WSS utilities to reinvent and strengthen themselves, the World Bank has developed Utility of the Future (UoF), a program designed to ignite, materialize and maintain transformation efforts in WSS utilities. The goal is to become the Utility of the Future — a future-focused utility, which provides reliable, safe, inclusive, transparent, and responsive WSS services through best-fit practices that allow it to operate in an efficient, resilient, innovative and sustainable manner. This is achieved through the strengthening of the essential processes of a WSS utility to face their current challenges, and the development of future-thinking capabilities to be one step ahead in a fast-changing environment.
Objectives of the Utility of the Future Program
Ignite actions, improvement, and sustainable transformation of water and/or sanitation utilities.
Guide utilities through the transformation process by working in parallel to strengthen their essential processes and develop their future-thinking capabilities to navigate a rapidly changing environment
Provide a practical, simple, and effective methodology to implement the transformation process in water utilities.
Strengthen a utility’s internal capabilities in operational and managerial processes, as well as in human and leadership skills.
Bring a utility’s team on board, gain their commitment, and empower them to transform the utility.
Connect utilities with peers globally to facilitate knowledge exchange and know-how.
Provide the water and sanitation sector with tools available to the public, within the open knowledge philosophy of the UoF program.
The main target audience of the UoF program comprises WSS utility managers, owners, and water practitioners.
The Utility of the Future
The UoF is a new paradigm for providing WSS services, far beyond what most utilities have achieved—or even aimed for—today. A UoF provides high-quality services in a highly efficient manner while also being innovative, inclusive, market- and customer-oriented, and resilient. The success pyramid illustrates the interdependencies and complexities of a UoF.
In light of an unpredictable and rapidly changing operating environment, the World Bank has developed this program to guide utilities in initiating and maintaining transformation efforts. The goal is to become a Utility of the Future—a future-focused utility that provides reliable, safe, inclusive, transparent, and responsive WSS services through best-fit practices in an efficient, resilient, and sustainable manner. The UoF is a new paradigm for providing WSS services, far beyond what most utilities have yet achieved—or even aimed for. A UoF provides high-quality services in a highly efficient manner while also being innovative, inclusive, market and customer oriented, and resilient. The success pyramid (figure ES.2) illustrates the interdependencies and complexities of a UoF, as well as the different perspectives, angles, or elements through which a utility can be analyzed.
On the apex of the pyramid is service to customers is the ultimate objective, which clearly depends on technical and commercial operations, though not exclusively so. Other elements of sound utility management are organization and strategy, human resource management, and financial management. Together, these elements promote effective and efficient commercial and technical operations, while the legal framework and governance in which the utility operates shape its enabling environment.
In addition, the UoF methodology incorporates complementary analyses, called “zoom-in lenses,” of key topics such as environmental management, energy efficiency, and gender balance and diversity, among others. These additional lenses allow utilities to gain a more in-depth understanding of particular topics of special relevance to them.
The UoF Methodology to Ignite Transformation in Water and Sanitation Utilities
The UoF methodology works in parallel on two dimensions to improve performance and ignite transformation in water and sanitation utilities: management and operational (a “hard” dimension that focuses mainly on processes and practices), and change management (a “soft” dimension that focuses on leveraging staff engagement, empowerment, and teambuilding).
Decision and preparation: This starts with a utility’s decision to initiate a process of transformation, after which it engages its board of directors, and develops a work plan with its management team.
Rapid in-depth analysis: It is important to analyze and understand a utility’s current performance and maturity levels, reviewing all its processes and defining the next desirable performance and maturity level.
Ignition and short-term action plan: In this third step, a utility considers its opportunities for improvement, defines and prioritizes possible actions to be implemented, and ignites transformation by implementing those high-impact and low-cost/effort actions that can be executed in the short term (100 days).
Strategic vision and long-term action plan: It is important that a utility define (or update) its strategic framework, vision, mission, values, and strategic objectives to define the business plan, incorporating those actions to be implemented in the long term (5 years).
Sustainable transformation: In the final step, the utility’s strategic vision and business plan are translated into actions to ensure sustainable improvement, and to continue the transformation process to become a Utility of the Future.
The change management dimension of the UoF methodology utilizes a process called SPEED (Shake, Pause, Engage, Envision, Deploy), which accompanies each phase of the utility’s transformation process with some guidance to be reviewed at the beginning and at the end of the phase. This guidance is related to leadership, engagement, empowerment, and team building. The SPEED stages that accompany the UoF methodology are:
Shake up the status quo, taking the utility out of the comfort zone. | |
Pause the utility’s inertia for a moment and start gaining commitment and momentum for the transformation. | |
Engage and empower the utility team to act and take ownership of the transformation process. | |
Envision the future and seize momentum to involve the entire utility. | |
Deploy the transformation process, making continuous improvement part of the organization’s DNA. |
Below you can download the UoF resources: the conceptual and methodological UoF framework; and the UoF Toolkit for its application. The UoF Toolkit will be constantly updated, with new emerging topics, new technologies, new innovations, and new practices that will support utilities in their process of improvement and continuous learning.
UoF is a program in constant evolution and its vision is to keep co-creating and multiplying knowledge for the benefit of the sector, the utilities and the community. Contact us at uof@worldbank.org to send us your questions, comments or suggestions, and to be part of the UoF community.
Community
Resources
Download
- Utility of the Future Program 2.0
- English | Albanian | French | Indonesian
- UoF Toolkit 2.0 (click to download excel files)
- English | Spanish | Albanian | Bosnian
- Bahasa Indonesian | Arabic | Polish | French
- Portuguese | Cambodian
- UoF Training Program (click to download PDFs and excel files)
UoF Program Blogs
Ideas 4 Change: How youth everywhere are putting their best ideas forward to fight climate change
Staying ahead of the wave: How water utilities are becoming climate-ready
How to become the 'Utility of the Future'? Igniting transformation in water utilities
The Utility of the Future Youth Challenge
The race to zero: How youth help water utilities mitigate carbon emissions
Enter this year's UoF Youth Challenge
Dreaming big pays off: How young people are disrupting the water sector with bold ideas
Utility of the Future Challenge: Delivering water and sanitation services in 2050
Additional Key Resources
- PiR Framework - Water Supply and Sanitation Policies, Institutions, and Regulation
- Agile PiR Prototype Tool - Policies, Institutions, and Regulation tool for an agile sector analysis
- New Ibnet - International Benchmarking Networking for Water and Sanitation Utilities
- Equal Aqua - Inclusive Water Institutions Platform
Contact
uof@worldbank.org
The World Bank, in partnership with the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), has established the Utility of the Future Center of Excellence (UoF-CoE). The purpose of the UoF-CoE is to unlock the full potential of water utilities and empower them to become the driving force to accelerate universal access to water and sanitation services, through three strategic pillars:
Knowledge: Articulate, generate, disseminate and multiply practical and high-value knowledge accessible to all.
Innovation: Challenge creativity to create impactful solutions for the water sector.
Collaboration: Develop synergies to unite diverse expertise and exploit the full potential of the collective strength.
UoF-CoE Strategic Objectives:
1. Bring together knowledge and experience in water and sanitation utilities to achieve universal access.
2. Create a space for testing and experimentation that brings new ideas, and practical and impactful innovations to the sector.
3. Articulate key stakeholders to bring together capabilities, expertise and resources to generate value to citizens.
4. Develop mechanisms to collect best practices worldwide on water and sanitation utilities management.
5. Empower water and sanitation utilities to be the driving force to accelerate universal access to water and sanitation.
UoF-CoE Components:
Component 1 - Utility of the future Global Operation: An operations center to manage and implement the UoF Global program and support water utilities worldwide.
An operations center to manage and implement the UoF Program and support water utilities worldwide. Through this component the UoF-CoE will, among others: (i) Operate UoF program worldwide (ii) Articulate local teams in the tailoring of the UoF program as per the country needs and priorities; (iii) follow up on the progress of program implementation; (iv) train local teams and consultants in the general approach of the UoF program and the use of the toolkit, as well as government agencies for the scale up and replication of the program; and, (v) continue with the development of new versions of the UoF Program and toolkits (vi) implementation of the UoF Program in up to 50 utilities, as part of the Western Balkans Project.
Component 2 - Global Knowledge, Innovation and Collaboration Hub: A knowledge hub pushing knowledge frontiers on utility performance and service innovations, connecting utilities at local, regional, and global levels.
Through this component the UoF-CoE will continue to propose innovative practices, approaches and technologies to support water utilities in their daunting task of providing safe, reliable, and sustainable water and sanitation services to the population. This activity could, for example, entail: (i) Development of additional “zoom-in” lenses to the UoF tool, as deep dives on particular topics relevant to utilities; (ii) Activities to crowd-source innovative ideas (e.g., Youth innovation challenge, Ideathon, innovation lab, etc.), (iii) Activities to cross-fertilize utilities and share challenges, experiences and solutions, (iv) Capacity building activities to strengthen particular areas to be strengthened identified in the implementation of the UoF program. (v) Activities to attract young professionals to the water and sanitation sector.
Component 3 - Performance based Financial Facility: A financing facility giving comprehensive support to utilities in the Western Balkans as well as access to performance-based grants for ‘quick-win’ measures to improve performance and boost sustainability.
Upon completion of the implementation of the UoF Program as part of the Western Balkans Project, the UoF-CoE will use a competitive mechanism to provide in-depth support to up to 10 utilities in the region for the implementation of key measures identified in the short-term and/or long-term action plan. The selection will be based on the level of commitment and improvement demonstrated by the water and sanitation utilities during the implementation of the UF Program.
Component 4 - Project Incubator and business plan: A project incubator to identify needs and opportunities for further support and to help utilities in the Western Balkans in the preparation of strategic investments.
As the program is implemented in water and sanitation utilities participating in the Western Balkans Project, specific needs for more comprehensive and transformational institutional measures as well as needs for infrastructure expansion will be identified, and potential options to support them will be prioritized. Activities under this component could include: (i) Business plans with clear investments plans, (i) detailed assessments on particular sub-sectors, (iii) roadmaps to address complex challenges, (iv) inputs for technical specifications and terms of reference, and (v) high-level assessment of infrastructure options and development of pre-feasibility studies.
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UoF - Center of Excellence
Last Updated: Jan 25, 2023