Person:
Danilenko, Alexander
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Disaster resilient cities,
Environment and climate change,
Water economics,
Water sector regulation
Degrees
Departments
Global Practice on Water, The World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Alexander Danilenko is a Senior Water and Sanitation Specialist of the Water and sanitation program administered by the World Bank. For more than a decade he is involved in water sector performance assessment and benchmarking. He is also working on water and environmental projects of the World Bank. He is an active participant of the climate change work.
Publication Search Results
1 - 7 of 7
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Publication
A Primer on Energy Efficiency for Municipal Water and Wastewater Utilities
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-02)This primer is concerned with energy use and efficiency of network-based water supply and wastewater treatment in urban areas. It focuses on the supply side of the municipal water cycle, including the extraction, treatment, and distribution of water, and collection and treatment of wastewater-activities which are directly managed by Water and Wastewater Utilities (WWUs). The main challenges to scaling up Energy Efficiency (EE) in municipal water and wastewater services stem from sector governance issues, knowledge gaps, and financing hurdles. Utility governance affects the overall performance of individual WWUs and influences decision making, incentives and actions for energy management. This is likely the most significant barrier to WWU EE in many developing countries. Addressing knowledge gaps requires efforts to systematize data collection, training, and capacity building at utilities, supported by local and national governments. Financing hurdles can be reduced by introducing dedicated EE funds to address large but disaggregated investment needs and by promoting third-party financing through energy/water savings performance contracts. This primer is part of Energy Efficient Cities Initiative's (EECI's) knowledge clearinghouse function to inform World Bank (WB) staff working in urban water supply and wastewater management, as well as in energy, about the opportunities and good practices for improving EE and reducing energy cost in municipal WWUs. -
Publication
The IBNET Water Supply and Sanitation Blue Book 2014 : The International Benchmarking Network for Water and Sanitation Utilities Databook
(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-08-06)Well-run water utilities play an important role in ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity. Consumers need reliable access to high quality and affordable water and sanitation services. To deliver these basic services efficiently and effectively requires high-performing utilities that are able to respond to urban growth, to connect with the poor, and to improve wastewater disposal practices. The IBNET Water Supply and Sanitation Blue Book 2014 summarizes the water sector status from 2006 to 2011. Since 2006, municipal water performance has improved despite accelerated urbanization and the impacts of triple crises (food, fuel, and financial). Overall coverage has increased and piped water and wastewater services became accessible to more people. An increasing number of utilities now actively handle the water billing, collection, and water management through metering. IBNET tools, such as data collection instruments and protocols, the IBNET database, and the IBNET tariff database, enable enhanced sharing of information on close to 4,500 utilities from more than 130 countries and territories. -
Publication
State Water Agencies in Nigeria: A Performance Assessment
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015-09-08)Investments on the order of $US6 billion are estimated to be needed in the water sector in Nigeria in the next 10 years if the country is to achieve universal water supply coverage. This is the main finding of State Water Agencies in Nigeria: A Performance Assessment. The report focuses on water provision services from the state water authorities (SWAs), or water boards, as they are the major and only regulated agencies that provide water to the urban population. Sanitation provision is not addressed because the majority of SWAs do not provide this service to their customers. This report highlights the issues related to the performance of SWAs, tariff levels and structures, financing mechanisms, and concerns with governance within the SWAs and state governments. For example, as a result of accelerated urbanization and migration of the population to the large cities, the average coverage by SWAs is about 40 percent, and the average domestic water consumption was 26 liters per capita per day in 2013, well below the recommended average. The remaining majority of the population relies on alternative service providers. To the extent possible, the report also shows how institutional weaknesses affect customer costs, subsidies to the sector, and the financing required to scale up investment. It showcases how the related operational and maintenance expenditures of the SWAs can actually be covered from the various financing sources. Coping costs of the population getting water from alternative water providers is assessed at US$700 million a year, and this number is growing. In addition, utilities get about US$100 million in operational subsidies that cover labor, electricity, and other operational costs. State Water Agencies in Nigeria: A Performance Assessment provides the government of Nigeria with a structured and coherent quantitative snapshot of the state of its urban water sector. Ultimately, this report is a first step toward performance benchmarking in Nigeria’s water and sanitation sector. The findings summarized in this publication should eventually serve as a tool for utilities and their authorities and stakeholders, as well as for bilateral and multilateral donors, in their efforts to monitor the performance and progress of each water provider and the sector as a whole. -
Publication
The IBNET Water Supply and Sanitation Performance Blue Book
(World Bank, 2011)The International Benchmarking Network for Water and Sanitation Utilities (IBNET) blue book creates a baseline and, at the same time, offers a global vision of the state of the sector in developing countries. By tracking progress in and quantifying and assessing the water supply and sanitation sectors, IBNET helps meet the goal of providing safe, sustainable, and affordable water and sanitation for all. This report serves three purposes. First, it aims to raise awareness of how IBNET can help utilities identify ways to improve urban water and wastewater services. Second, it provides an introduction to benchmarking and to IBNET's objectives, scope, focus, and some recent achievements. Third, it elaborates the methodology and data behind IBNET and presents an overview of IBNET results and country data. By providing comparative information on utilities' costs and performance, IBNET and this study can be used by a wide range of stakeholders, including: 1) utilities: to identify areas of improvement and set realistic targets; 2) governments: to monitor and adjust sector policies and programs; 3) regulators: to ensure that adequate incentives are provided for improved utility performance and that consumers obtain value services; 4) consumers and civil society: to express valid concerns; 5) international agencies and advisers: to perform an evaluation of utilities for lending purposes; and 6) private investors: to identify opportunities and viable markets for investments. -
Publication
Performance of Water Utilities in Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-03)Africa’s urban population is growing rapidly. Between 2000 and 2015, the urban population increased by more than 80 percent from 206 million to 373 million people. Although access to piped water increased over the period (from 82 million urban dwellers with piped water in 2000 to 124 million in 2015), African utilities were not able to keep up with the rapid urbanization as reflected in the decline of piped water as a primary source of water supply in percentage terms. The objective of this assessment is to inform Bank and government policies and projects on the drivers of utility performance. The report describes the main outcomes and lessons learned from the assessment that identified and analyzed the main features of water utility performance in Africa. The report includes the following chapters: chapter one gives introduction, chapter two describes the methodology used in the study, including details on the data collection process. In chapter three, the study team undertook a trend analysis of utility performance of the sector. Chapter four examines the efficiency of utilities using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) while also using an absolute performance approach. Chapter five investigates the effect of institutional factors on utility performance. Chapter six presents an econometric analysis of the drivers of utility performance, using various definitions of utility performance. The results from the econometric models are triangulated with a set of case studies of five utilities (Burkina Faso’s l’Office National de l’Eau et de l’Assainissement (ONEA), Cote d’Ivoire’s la société de distribution d’eau de la Côte d’Ivoire (SODECI), Kenya’s Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company (NCWSC), Senegal’s Sénégalaise des Eaux (SDE), and Uganda’s National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), similar to those that the electricity study team undertook, which are presented in chapter seven. The report concludes in chapter eight with the lessons learned from the assessment. -
Publication
Climate Change and Urban Water Utilities : Challenges and Opportunities
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-06)The impact of climate change is increasingly important for the design, construction, and maintenance of water sector infrastructure. Average global temperatures are on the rise, causing cycles of extreme weather: droughts and flooding are becoming common; seawater levels are rising; and many locations are considerably drier, impacting water sources such as lakes and rivers. Groundwater supplies are under stress due to decreasing precipitation rates and increasing extraction rates. Urban water systems must meet the demands of expanding industry needs and rapid population growth. Pollution adds to the growing threats to water resources, increasing treatment requirements for providing safe water to city residents. With two-thirds of the world's megacities located in regions that are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, urban water utilities are facing an increasing need to improve the management of water resources and associated infrastructure. Diversifying sources of water supply will become increasingly important whether through the construction of new storage facilities, the appropriate and sustainable extraction of groundwater, water trading or conservation, or the use of recycled or desalinated water. This water note, based on the input of 20 large utilities around the world presents the perceptions, experiences, and approaches to addressing climate related challenges of urban areas in developing, middle income, and developed countries. -
Publication
Water Operators from Emerging Markets : New Players for Public-Private Partnerships
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-06)In the 1990s a few multinationals dominated the market for public-private partnership (PPP) contracts in water. Yet in recent year's water operators from developing countries have won most of the new PPP contracts for the management of water utilities in countries as diverse as Brazil, Cameroon, Chile, China, Colombia, India, Malaysia, and the Russian Federation. While the size of the market served by large foreign operators has remained stagnant since 2001, the population served by private operators from developing countries grew from 15 million to more than 70 million, or 40 percent of the market, by 2008. This big shift opens new perspectives on using PPPs as a tool to reform water utilities in the developing world.