From June 10-14, 2019, a workshop ‘Scoping the interventions for Thaketa township’ was organized in Yangon as part of the Urban Water track of the Partners in Business: Urban Water Logistics for a Greater Yangon (PIB UWLY) program. Previously a successful and insightful fieldtrip to Thaketa township was undertaken in March 2019. Now the consortium and local stakeholders have met again in Yangon to scope the interventions proposed and work on the detailed action plans for the interventions that could be realized in the short term to make Thaketa climate resilient.
In order to ensure that the proposed interventions are locally grounded, the consortium invited the local stakeholders to join in for a discussion. For the brainstorm session on June 12, representatives from Ward 5 and the local Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC) township office also joined. In addition, the YCDC Water Resources and Water Supply Authority, Urban Planning Authority, Environmental Management Authority, Drainage and Waste Water Management Authority joined to share their thoughts on how the advice from the PIB consortium members can contribute to Thaketa becoming more resilient, with a secure and safe access to water.
Of all the intervention options discussed the participants were asked to make a ranking. Keeping in mind the local context, bankability, practicability and inspiration requirements as requested by the Yangon Regional Government, the following were the top 5 intervention issues:
- New water resources
- Storage of water
- Ensuring good quality
- Improving the drainage
- Organizing a public awareness campaign
During the rest of the week the PIB Urban Water members investigated the feasibility of the interventions proposed with the local stakeholders.
With these findings the PIB experts travelled back to Thaketa, scouting for locations to install the possible interventions, assessing the local feasibility and putting figures behind ideas. The result is a short list of interventions for Thaketa, an initial description of the interventions that we plan to do, with as much detail that we can add at this stage. At the moment the consortium is finalizing the interventions – we hope to share more details on them soon.
