In eleven places in North-Sulawesi, on the Moluccas and in Irian Jaya/Papua, the Water Supply Company Drenthe (WMD) is going to help get the broken down water supply system going again. To this end, the WMD will enter into partnerships with local water companies; WMD will acquire a majority interest in these.

The public-private partnership in this pilot project means that the WMD (private) will contribute 3.4 million euros and the Dutch minister for Development Aid (public) 7.5 million euros for the coming five years. The programme "Partners for Water" facilitates the funding within the framework of the development of innovative forms of public-private cooperation in the water sector. The approach of the WMD can clear the way to achieve the millennium objective: reducing by half, the number of people who do not yet have access to clean water and sanitation.

The Dutch minister for Development Aid sees the WMD as one of the pioneers of a new approach to development aid. Water companies, water boards and the central government are searching for new ways to deploy community funds optimally. The pilot project is viewed as extremely promising by all parties, both here and overseas.

Within fifteen years the WMD wants to provide three million people with drinking water. The eleven companies have at present a total of 92,000 connections, through which approximately 600,000 people can be served. This figure must increase to more than three million people and 600,000 connections in 2020. An estimated 120 million euros will be needed in the coming fifteen years for the total rehabilitation and extension of the drinking water supply in the eleven municipalities in eastern Indonesia. For the first five years, eleven million euros is available to get the project started.

Without the deployment of public and private funds, a project of this nature cannot be carried out within the limiting condition of "rate follows costs". In any case, the water companies in the Netherlands were also set up with the aid of government subsidies in the nineteen sixties and seventies. By opting for public-private partnership our government money can be optimally deployed for business purposes. Business purposes means that a water company must make a profit. The company ploughs this profit back into the enterprise. This creates self-financing companies.