Solok, a small community located on the island of Sumatra, is best known for the high quality and natural whiteness of its "Solok rice." Solok caught the attention of USAID because of its proactive mayor and the city’s good work on other USAID-funded programs.  For this, they were recommended as a good partner for Gresham, a suburb of Portland. Gresham is recognized for its professional staff and active participation with its past CityLinks partner.

Solok and Gresham decided to focus on water services management. Improving water services is a priority for Solok and one in which Gresham has much expertise. Solok's goal was to provide clean water to all of its citizens, with a long-term goal of providing potable water to the entire city. Another benefit of the partnership was attention to public health through activities in the community's schools and involvement of the public health officer.

Partnership Objectives and Activities

Solok had already started the planning needed to improve its water system under another USAID-funded project, PERFORM. Building on the work already completed, Gresham assisted Solok with the next steps that the city needed to take to reach its goal of providing clean water to all city residents.

Solok and Gresham worked through the various steps of their well-defined action plan. First, they identified how much water was needed to supply the city of Solok in 2008 and in 2013. They then estimated the project cost to incorporate into the corporate plan's capital project list and determined the ongoing operational costs, using a template created during the partnership. The partners determined how much revenue was available for each of the five example capital projects and identified potential sources to fund the gaps between operational/capital costs and the revenues available. 

The cities also outlined citizen involvement processes that could be used by Solok in determining its budget and project plan and the process that can be used from the time water is taken in through billing and collection. The final step in this action plan was to identify opportunities for cost savings in the water.