The IDB has contracted K&M to provide a report for publication on water utilities in the Caribbean. This report will include benchmarking the key operational and financial indicators for water utilities in the Caribbean, exploring the scope of benefits from implementing Non-Revenue Water (NRW) reduction projects, assessing the impact on COVID-19, and identifying levels of resilience to natural disasters. This report will also provide recommendation to governments and water utilities on actions they can take to improve performance and resiliency of water utilities. K&M will: • Benchmark the operational and financial performance of water utilities in the Caribbean. This will also include benchmarking access to water and sanitation, quality of service, operating efficiency, and affordability of tariffs.
• Complementing the work IDB has recently been doing to assist water utilities in the Caribbean with reducing NRW, we will highlight utilities that have had success in reducing NRW (for example, NWC in Jamaica, BWS in Belize, and WSC in The Bahamas) and show how that success has contributed to improved operational and financial performance.
• Describe the impact of COVID-19 has had on water utilities in the Caribbean, including an assessment of the impact on demand, revenues, collections, operating expenses, and liquidity.
• Detail the physical and monetary damages that water utilities in the Caribbean have incurred from natural disasters in recent years.
• Provide recommendation to governments and water utilities on actions they can take to improve performance and resiliency of water utilities.

The IDB has contracted K&M to assess the impact of COVID-19 on water and sanitation utilities throughout Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). K&M will begin with an assessment of the impact to date by reviewing data provided by utilities. Following this review, K&M will develop a generic financial model that can be used to quantify the projected financial and operational impact on the utilities. This draft financial model will be tested by applying it to three utilities in LAC, two of which are in Colombia and Jamaica. After testing the financial model, K&M will finalize the generic financial model and prepare a user manual for it. In addition, based on the results of the application of the financial model, K&M will produce recommendations for mitigating the impacts of COVID-19 on utilities in LAC.

K&M was contracted by the IDB Invest to provide support in analyzing LAC’s Public and Private Partnerships (PPP) in the Water and Sanitation sector (W&S) and proposing lines of action and recommendations to enhance IDB Invest’s participation in the market. K&M is developing a database of PPPs in W&S in LAC over the past 10 years in order to identify the trends. K&M will also analyze IDB Invest’s previous experience as a financier of W&S projects, identify success factors, lessons learned and main challenges. K&M will then identify the main challenges for the water PPP market in LAC and compare it with similar international projects that have been successful in order to identify the lessons learned. Finally, K&M will share the results of the analysis with IDB Invest’s main stakeholders and define with them possible financial and non-financial products to promote private investment in LAC.