WORLD BANK PROVIDES $2.4 MILLION IN GRANT FOR PIPED WATER CONNECTIONS

Jakarta, Feb. 23 (ANTARA) - The Indonesian Government and the World Bank, in its capacity as administrator of the Global partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA), signed an agreement on a grant worth US$2.4 million for expanding piped water supply to Surabaya's urban Poor.

The GPOB project would help Indonesia achieve the Millennium Development Goal for water supply by targeting the urban poor not afford paying piped water connections, Joachim von Amsberg, the World Bank head of representative in Indonesia, said in a press statement here on Monday.
The piped water supply was expected to help the poor improve their health and increase their saving as they would manage to save the cost of buying water, he said.
The OBA scheme in Surbaya, Indonesia aims to extend piped water connections to 15,500 low-income households consisting of 77,500 people.
The proposed scheme supports three outputs: in-fill connections to existing mains, expansion connections to previously unserved areas, and bulk supply or 'master meter' connections for particularly poor, dense, or informal communities not otherwise eligible for individual connections.
Funding will provide more reliable and cheaper water supply to poor households, reduce the time spent collecting water, and reduce the incidence of water-borne disease.
According to some data, only 17 percent of the Indonesian households currently have access to piped water supply. Many families have to use contaminated water as they could not afford buying clean water.
Aurin Sitorius, the Indonesian finance ministry's Director for Overseas Loans and Grants, said that the GPOBA project would give a significant impact on the community especially that in Surabaya.
The Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA) is a partnership of donors and international organizations working together to support output-based aid (OBA) approaches.
GPOBA's mandate is to fund, design, demonstrate, and document OBA approaches to improve delivery of basic infrastructure and social services to the poor in developing countries.
GPOBA was established in 2003 by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) as a multi-donor trust fund administered by the World Bank.
Since then, four other donors have joined the program, namely International Finance Corporation (IFC) (June 2006), Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS) (December 2006), Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) (February 2007) and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) (December 2007).
As of June 30, 2008, GPOBA's donors have provided US$179.3 million in contributions and pledges to the program.