Refresher Course: Modern Asset Management for Ensuring Sustainability of Investments in the Water and Agricultural Sectors (MAMESIWAS)
This refresher course exposes you to the principles and the state-of-the-art practice of Asset Management: an essential component in the maintenance and improvement of services in water systems.
For whom?
This course is intended for Orange Knowledge Programme (OKP)/Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP) alumni from Asian countries.
Coordinators: Dr. Assela Pathirana, Associate Professor in Water Infrastructure Asset Management
Counterpart: Ministry of Urban Development Water Supply and Housing Facilities
Open to: Alumni from Asia
Background
Water systems in the developing world are often not equipped to formulate sound maintenance plans, backed by state-of-the-art knowledge and tools. This lack of capacity renders the enormous investments in water infrastructure, mobilized by, among other initiatives, the SDGs, to be unsustainable. Asset management is an essential component in the maintenance and improvement of services in water systems including utilities, irrigation systems and flood protection and water management infrastructure.
Asset Management requires the identification of the most critical components of networks, life-cycle cost analysis and minimizing negative impacts of (inevitable) failures. This approach is vitally important for the urban centres of the South, as performance demands to increase with the population at a phenomenal rate. This course exposes you to the principles and the state-of-the-art practice of Asset Management.
Objectives
The objective is to reorient the thought process of asset management practitioners from conservative engineering and economic perspective towards an inclusive, multi-valued, Sustainable development goals (SDGs) perspective. This is essential in emerging economies to streamline the investments in water infrastructure to accomplish SDGs comprising: addressing development needs and future adaptation gaps; climate extremities; and, humanitarian crises such as refugee influx and sudden economic downturns. Hence, this training recalibrates the current water infrastructure asset management actions at strategic, tactical and operational levels to achieve these multiple objectives by refreshing the asset management knowledge of alumni, who are spread across these three levels in agencies in the South Asian region.
In essence, we ask (and answer) the questions:
- How we can do more with less in the context of water infrastructure services?
- How can we assure the sustainability of infrastructure beyond project implementation?
- How can we manage infrastructure well in the contexts of severe resource constraints and uncertainties?
- How can we be in control of investments we make in infrastructure and assure that they provide a positive return over the long term?
Target Audience
This Refresher Course is intended for Orange Knowledge Programme (OKP)/Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP) alumni from Asia. Academics, Government officials, NGO and UN staff members, and other professionals with a background in one of the following or related areas:
- Agricultural
- Engineering
- Natural science and Natural Resource management
- Water Management
Orange Knowledge Programme (OKP) Fellowships
The Netherlands Government has provided full fellowships for a maximum of 20 participants available for each Refresher Course. Note that 50% of the total needs to be female alumni. These fellowships include:
- Air travel (economy class) from the nearest international airport to the candidate’s home country to the Refresher course country and vice versa. Please note that travel costs made to reach the airport in your home country will not be reimbursed,
- In Sri Lanka, transfer from the airport to the hotel and return. No other travel costs are refunded,
- Health insurance,
- Accommodation, including meals, for the duration of the course, up to a maximum of 6 days in total, depending on the date of arrival in and departure from the hosting country,
- Direct visa costs (related costs, such as travel costs to the Embassy or related hotel stay are not refundable)
Assela Pathirana
Associate Professor in Water Infrastructure Asset Management