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High volumes of non-revenue water (NRW) threaten water security in many developing countries. The traditional technocentric water management regime largely neglects social and systemic complexities that need to be addressed for successful reform. This paper explores the challenges of water sector reform and NRW reduction in Malaysia to identify possible drivers that can accelerate the NRW management reform. The analysis uses a system thinking approach, with key systemic relationships represented with causal loop diagrams (CLDs). Findings reveal that the NRW management reform is influenced by technical, environmental, economic, social, institutional, and corporate governance factors. Using the CLDs, leverage points that can accelerate NRW management reform are identified. Policies and strategies that can accelerate the NRW management reform in Malaysia are recommended: (1) water supply security and sustainable development must be emphasised as the main concern for water sector reform; (2) understanding of the socio-economic benefits of water tariff adjustment by stakeholders is necessary to build political alliances for water tariff increments; and (3) the newly privatised water services providers in Malaysia require an integrated NRW reduction plan to optimise the time taken for NRW reduction and at the same time, transforming their current human resources that were inherited from the previous public water utilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the issue of non-revenue water (NRW) in urban India, taking the city of Bangalore as a case study. Using empirical evidence from a survey conducted among 601 low-income households in Bangalore, we investigate the major sources of NRW for water utilities and propose policy recommendations based on the analysis. Our key finding is that public stand posts and public wells, which supply free water, are a non-trivial source of NRW. In addition, we find that revenue generation from metered tap connections is sub-optimal. Further, we observe potential revenue being shifted away from the public water utilities toward private providers, as several households pay for water obtained from neighbours, tankers, or other private sources. Drawing upon our findings, we propose a new tariff structure for urban water utilities to consider. We also review the implementation of prepayment metering for public stand posts in other developing countries and its feasibility in Bangalore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The on-going debate on aid effectiveness highlights that in order for capacity development interventions to remain relevant and their results sustainable, their planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation need to be flexible and case-specific. It is not only important to account for end results, but also to adjust interventions during their implementation. Capacity development partnerships (CDP) between water operators are portrayed as a promising approach for sustained performance. However, it has been observed that these interventions require significant time to lead to the targeted water operator performance gains. Hence, managing the partnership solely through the use of key performance indicators offers the partners little insight into both the progress achieved and the effectiveness of the partnership activities in contributing to such progress. This incomplete picture is likely to limit the ability of partners to manage the project efficiently. This paper proposes a multi-path approach to monitoring and evaluating the performance of CDPs (this being understood as different fromthe performance of the targetedwater operator) that enableswellinformed management of the partnership. The designed approach is applied to compare the progress of two partnership projects, namely those of the Lilongwe and Blantyre Water Boards in Malawi, with Vitens Evides International. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]