As part of the strengthening the WASH financing environment program, USAID IUWASH PLUS provides support in establishing the collaboration among partners that include local governments, Micro Finance Institutions (MFI) and Small-Medium Enterprises (SME) for providing household access to finance for WASH services. With that regard, USAID IUWASH PLUS organized a workshop on WASH Microfinance in Ternate City on September 14, 2017
The workshop was attended by 20 participants, included the representatives from the City Government, PDAM, Ternate City Offices of Public Works and Spatial Planning, Health, Environment, Bappelitbangda, Baznas, WASH SME and MFI represented by Bahari Berkesan Islamic People’s Financing Bank (BPRS). The purpose of this workshop is to bring together the stakeholders who will be involved in the water supply and sanitation sector financing, identify potential collaboration, and improve the performance’ effectiveness and efficiency, both from the government and financial sector, by providing services to the appropriate community.
Representing the Ternate City Government, Bachtiar Teng, Asistant II of Regional Secretary of Ternate City, emphasized on the collaboration potential to increase water supply and sanitation access in Ternate City.
During the presentation session, Bambang Marasabessy, the Division Head of Division of Cipta Karya PU Ternate, explained that sanitation coverage in Ternate City has reached 95%, but 53% is still in basic sanitation and 5% still practice open defecation. To achieve the Universal Access 2019 targets, Ternate Municipal Government is currently building individual septic tank (grants for lower structure of the building) and community-based WWTP (IPAL Kommunal) in several sub-districts in Ternate City. Meanwhile, Syaiful Djafar, the PDAM Director of Ternate City, stated that the main PDAM program currently is to increase the capacity of water source of 70 liters per second with the estimated addition of 5,000 new house connections.
Responding to that, Barija Hormati, the Division Head of Internal Control Unit of BPRS Bahari Berkesan, said that the current condition of water supply and sanitation access can create business opportunity and market in WASH Sector. “The grants program on individual septic tanks for the lower structure of the house can be combined with the microfinance for the upper structure, and for the 5,000 new house connections, Community Based Organizations can collaborate with PDAM for financing the new installations,” she added
Conveying the appreciation to USAID IUWASH PLUS, the Director of Ternate City PDAM in his closing remarks stated, “Thank you USAID IUWASH PLUS for initiating this workshop. I hope in the future this microfinance scheme can be implemented immediately to help the people of Ternate City get the increase access to water supply and sanitation.”
The similar workshop on WASH microfinance will be held also in all USAID IUWASH PLUS regions between October and November 2017.
