Development of small towns' management models

摘要

There are presently 2 agencies in Lao PDR principally responsible for WSS service provision. In urban centres, the Urban Water Supply State Enterprises (known as Nam Papa) are responsible for operating and maintaining constructed utilities on behalf of each province. Overseeing the planning of these services in the urban centres is the Department of Housing and Urban Planning (DHUP) in the Ministry of Communication, Transport, Post and Construction (MCTPC); and in the rural areas the National Centre for Environmental Health and Water Supply (NEW) in the Ministry of Public Health (MoH). The urban and rural WSS sectors have functioned separately in the past. Until 1999, all activities were centrally controlled, but within the Government's decentralization program, responsibility has been passed to each province for developing the necessary strategies, to the districts for planning the activities and to the communities for implementing projects. In line with the process of deregulation, the Government set up a regulatory authority in 1999, the Water Supply Authority (WASA), to oversee the developments in the water supply sector. This Authority is focusing mainly on the urban sector at present. There is no national agency directly responsible for sanitation in urban centres countrywide. There are four major challenges facing developments in the WSS Sector, particularly as they relate to small towns: 1. lack of institutional capacity and qualified persons, particularly at the district level; 2. lack of basic infrastructure services (transport, markets, electricity, telecommunications); 3. lack of private companies that can supply materials or survey, design, construct and operate WSS facilities; 4. lack of an enabling legislative and regulatory framework for the involvement of the private sector or communities.