Reform of the water supply and wastewater treatment sector of Lithuania by consolidation of utilities

The Commission supported the project providing recommendations, based on OECD’s expertise as well as international best practices, on how to make water utilities more efficient and more financially viable, so that they have resources and skills to maintain and improve the existing water infrastructures.

Context

The water utilities in Lithuania have a two-fold issue: on one side, they can’t collect enough revenues to finance the maintenance (or any extension) of the infrastructures; on the other side, they often lack capacities to tackle structural issues due to their small size and fragmentation.

This situation is putting in danger the compliance with the relevant EU water directives. Lithuania started a national reform aiming at improving efficiency and financial viability of water utilities and asked support to provide recommendations and international best practices in this domain.

Support delivered

The project provided a detailed analysis of the status quo and a deep look at international best practices. On that basis, the project developed a series of output with recommendations on financial incentives, governance, consolidation, water pricing and performance benchmarking for water utilities. 

Results achieved

The project had a very consultative approach, gathering different stakeholders throughout the project lifetime and helped creating momentum for reforms in the sector. Moreover, the work of the project fed directly into a draft law that the Ministry of Environment put to the Parliament for adoption.

More about the project

You can read the final report here: