Kommunalt vatten och sanitet, EIB

The overview of results achieved and related challenges in 2023 is presented below: City of Mostar: works are completed and unused funds have been reallocated to WWTP Tomislavgrad Municipality of Tomislavgrad: The implementation of the works on Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) suffered further delays due to the unavailability of the Supervising Engineer and completion is expected by 30 June 2024, subject to signature of the contract extension by of the Supervising Engineer (currently awaiting approval of the Government of the Federation BiH) Municipality of Bosanski Petrovac: The implementation of the works on WWTP suffered further delays due to the unavailability of the Supervising Engineer and completion is expected by 30 September 2024, subject to signature of the contract extension by of the Supervising Engineer (currently awaiting approval of the Government of the Federation BiH) Municipality of Trebinje: the WWTP is completed, the procurement and installation of the additional sludge treatment equipment is ongoing Municipality of Teslic: the WWTP works are fully completed. Key challenge during the past year was the delayed extension of the Contract for Supervision Services which consequently caused further delays in implementation in FBIH. Due to delays in the extension of the Central Supervision services contract works were suspended from Sept 2023 until to date. Given the further delays in the execution, yet another nocost extension under SidaEIB Agreement will have to be considered and approved. As to sustainability, the utilities financial challenges became obvious during the project implementation in Mostar as well as their week capacity to operate and maintain WWTP in sustainable manner. To mitigate this challenge, in 2021 Sida had decided to provide technical support to 5 utility companies in municipalities with ongoing investments in WWTPs through MEG project implemented by UNDP and cofinanced by Sweden. One of achievements of MEG project is that City of Mostar is now able to provide for operation and maintenance of the WWTP. Similar achievement can be already reported for Trebinje. To that, some municipalities already managed to reduce % of nonrevenue water, to optimize organization and staff structure, to improve budgeting and to introduce new tariffs. All this contributed to a greater sustainability and financial capability of water utility companies. Overall achievement: Finalizing construction of Waste water treatment facilities at local level (within this and other projects) and having them operational will help Bosnia and Herzegovina to comply with the EU Directive of Urban Waste Water even in absence of the countrywide water&waste water strategy. New WWTPs constructed in BIH in last 10 years contributed to significant increase of the percentage of treated waste water discharged into recipients (rivers) making BIH more compliant with EU requirements and reducing organic pollution in the rivers. These constructions were very often supported by Sweden in cooperation with IFIs, such as EIB (this project), EBRD, WB but also by other donors or Banks.

The Project concerns establishment of co-financing arrangement for municipal infrastructure projects with the European Investment Bank (EIB), with the main components: a) institutional capacity building of waste water utilities in the areas of operational efficiency and sustainability b) selective investments to the highly needed waste water treatment facilities. The overall aim of the Project is to provide improved municipal environmental infrastructure services to BiH citizens in accordance with EU directives, leading to improved environment and health. The result of the Project will be that participating municipal utilities will move towards compliance with EU-regulations on higher quality, reliability and sustainability of services, decrease environmental pollution and increase energy efficiency through a series of institutional improvements and selective investments in rehabilitation and wastewater systems. Sida contribution will be used to expand the ongoing water and sanitation programme financed from the EIB loan, EU grants and local contribution.