Unelco wins 3 awards at Pacific water conference

UNELCO, representing Vanuatu was awarded three best 2015 prizes at this year’s 8th Pacific Water and Waste Water (PWW) Conference and Expo held last week in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

Based on a benchmarking program set by the World Bank for 16 different performance areas, UNELCO won the prize for Best Technical Performing Utility, Best Maintenance Performing Utility and Best Disaster Resilience Utility.

UNELCO won this third prize, the first time the category was included in the awards list, especially for its performance in restoring water services after the devastation to Port Vila by Tropical Cyclone Pam in March this year.

This year’s UNELCO delegation to the annual PWW Association conference included members of Ministry of Land and Natural Resources from the Government of Vanuatu.

Joel Lengsau, Head of Water Services said this year’s meeting was the first that minister for responsible for water resources in the Pacific island countries were invited by PWWA to participate in the conference during which there was a Ministerial Conference on Wednesday, September 16.

The PWWA conference held at the Port Moresby Holiday Inn and hosted by Eda-Ranu – the company that runs Port Moresby’s water services and PNG Water, was opened by the Deputy PNG Prime Minister – Leo Dion. It was closed with the PWWA flag handed over to UNELCO which will be the host of the 2016 annual conference of the association to be held in Vanuatu. UNELCO has partnered closely with the Government of Vanuatu to provide international standard drinkable water at an affordable price.

Lengsau says that PWWA has 22 active member countries and this year a new member from New Caledonia joined the organization.