Challenges of managing non revenue water: experience from a water utility in Uganda

Reduction of Non Revenue Water, NRW remains one of the major challenges facing many utilities in most developing countries. High NRW means that in order to sustain the operations of the utility, the consumers have to pay high tariffs for the inefficiency which makes the service unaffordable to the majority of the consumers in low-income countries. Overcoming the challenges of NRW calls for joint efforts from all stakeholders and experience sharing from other parts of the world. This paper presents a step by step approach used by National Water and Sewerage Corporation- Entebbe to address the challenges of NRW with support from the Water Utility Partnership (WUP) and experts from other parts of the world. We discuss the approach that was used and how critical stakeholder mapping especially the cadre staff and top management of the Area was to creating ownership of the project and its successful implementation.