Braving Corona waves, lockdowns and physical distancing requirements during most of 2021, the Danube Learning Partnership has delivered. Now the final events got checked off a rich schedule.

During the second week of December, two important events took place. UTVSI, operator of the Asset Management Hub for Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia, delivered Module 3 of the Utility Management Training, a module with focus on Asset Management and Investment Planning (AMIP). Originally designed as a residential week with physical presence, the training was held online by a team with rich expertise on the topic. 

Over five intensive days participants from seven countries were exposed to valuable practices in the area of asset data capture, GIS and AM software systems, condition assessment and preventative maintenance, accounting and financial treatment of W&S assets, among others. The valuable knowledge of UTVSI, the AM core trainer, was tailored for sector managers and additional inputs were provided by other trainers (such as Sylvia Dimova, the program foremost financial expert), corporate partners and a couple of representatives of IFIs (David Tyler, EBRD and Ivaylo Kolev, World Bank).

The AMIP module marks a transition in the UMT roll-out from rather business and organizational topics towards the more technical modules such as Network Operations, Energy Management and Plans. The journey goes on in 2022. 

On 9 December, and again online, the UBP Utility Benchmarking Program Ukraine Hub held its final workshop, concluding the benchmarking cycle 2021. Sixteen utilities participated, among them utilities supported under the World Bank UIP-2 program.

The roster of Speakers included IAWD's Philip Weller, UBP Ukraine Hub Coordinator Victoria Iskova, Matthias Worst of Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection and the World Bank's Kristoffer Welsien.

The event marked the conclusion of an excellent year for the Ukraine Hub, with a study tour to Bavaria in October with 13 participants as a highlight.

These were the latest, but by far not the only events that the D-LeaP Hubs delivered in the face of ongoing Corona-related difficulties. We have to be grateful to those who made this possible and let us hope for better conditions in 2022, because again there will be an ambitioned schedule, and rollouts of new Hubs are in the last stages of planning.