From 12 to 17 November, fourteen UMT participants spent a residential week in Belgrade, courtesy of Belgrade Water and UTVSI, the Water service Association in Serbia. Two more joined the course online.

Aligned with the Word Bank's Utility of the Future program, utilizing the proven D-LeaP approach, and partnering with leading utilities in Central and Eastern Europe, the Utility Management Training aims to provide current and future water-sector managers with future-proof decision-making tools and techniques.

Asset Management and Investment Planning is the theme of the third of altogether six modules in the training curriculum. It helps participants to build a systematic understanding on asset management and its implications for successful investment planning. The module covers the fundamentals of asset management, the necessary information systems, the anatomy of utilities and their networks, the practical side of field data capture and validation, asset condition assessment, and maintenance management, with special emphasis on the concept of preventative maintenance and workflow management. 

The module then turns to financial and accounting aspects, treating asset valuation, accounting of public assets, and depreciation methods. Last but definitely not least, the module offers insights into investment planning, delving into investment drivers like asset renewal, compliance, service coverage and efficiency, but also outlining the role of operations, customer service, finance, IT in the process of investment planning. A special focus is on technological solutions such as asset registers, maintenance platforms, IoT-based systems for asset data capture, and digital twins. The residential week combines sessions with field exercises and presentations by participants. 

This wide theme spectrum made for a packed residential week. The UTVSI trainer team received full support from Belgrade Water and Subotica Water, with valuable contributions coming from UMT cycle 1 graduates Petar Pizurica and Marko Lazic.

The organizers also managed to fit into the schedule a joint dinner hosted by IAWD, which offered a chance for IAWD not only to meet with the UMT group and UTVSI, but also the management of IAWD member Belgrade Water and to say thank you for their support – on behalf of the whole sector, because the advanced training of today is the direly needed problem solving capacity of tomorrow.