Sustainable Water Development : Between Urban and Rural

Abstract

This paper aims to explain the circumstances of water development in urban and rural areas in terms of the municipal water utilities (MWUs) as primary water supply providers that upholds distributing water to achieve sustainable safe water access. To provide a fundamental analysis, a case study was conducted in 10 cities in Indonesia including Bandung, Surabaya, Palembang, Makassar, and Balikpapan as a representation of urban areas; and Ngawi, Garut, Gunung Mas, North Minahasa, and Ende as a representation of rural areas. The discussion focuses on the aspects of the population served, non-revenue water (NRW), and pricing policies. As a result, so far, MWUs have only been able to cover 61.76 percent of the total population with a high imbalance between the urban, 81.60 percent, and the rural, 41.92 percent. The high rate of NRW is still a problem for MWUs both in the urban and rural areas with a rate of 36.67 percent. And the last, the pricing policy by some local governments still set below the full cost recovery (FCR) caused MWUs run in losses which consequently made to local governments invested more money to cover the operational costs. A sustainable water development requires policy support that helps MWUs to operate independently so that it can fulfill its function as a provider of water services that can cover the entire population.