Civil Engineering July 2022 | Vol 30 No 6

Civil Engineering July 2022 11 but we had to deliver without them telling us what to do and who to appoint. “It was fun. I had really good people and we weren’t restrained in how we could innovate,” Neil adds. During his time as head of EWS, Neil and his team connected over 1 million people in the metro to piped water and more than 700 000 people to a toilet – another great achievement. This culmi- nated in EWS winning the 2014 Stockholm Industry Water Award, something Neil describes as “an Oscar for water utilities.” In winning the award, EWS was described as one of the most progressive utilities in the world, with an open approach to experimenting and piloting new solutions across both technical and social aspects of service delivery, making EWS a forerunner in the world of utility-run services. “That was a real highlight of my career. I was the figurehead, but for the team it was a huge recognition of the work that they had done. We were innovating all over the place, for example we got involved with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on their Reinvent the Toilet campaign, and Durban became the main testing centre for that work,” says Neil. Martin notes that Neil’s achievements while at EWS were the result of constantly thinking outside the box, challenging pre- conceived ideas and approaches, tackling difficult political economic issues, and empowering and incentivising his staff so that they shared in his results-based approach to turning service delivery around for all. “Neil embraced alternative approaches to providing water and sanitation services that were tailored to the demographic and topographic realities in which unserved communities lived in South Africa. His approach made EWS a global reference for efficient, appropriate and sustainable water supply and sanitation service delivery,” says Martin. “His management style, methods and results were so ground-breaking and relevant for other low- and middle-income countries in the so-called ‘developing world’ that organisations such as the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation started using his expertise and experiences to inform water and sanitation challenges across the globe.” CONSULTING WORK In 2014 Neil retired from EWS and began consulting, which has taken him all over the world. This work mainly involves putting together turnaround strate- gies – largely taking the lessons he learnt at EWS and using them to help other organisations address their institutional organisational service delivery challenges. “You can’t innovate without making mistakes and facing challenges. And I found that, all over the world, utilities were facing similar challenges and making similar mistakes. So you learn that you are not alone, and the more I worked internationally, the more I was able to borrow ideas and take them to other places. It is a fascinating challenge to see people respond and bring about change,” says Neil. Closer to home, Neil served as an independent external expert consulting on the Western Cape’s severe ‘Day Zero’ drought. The period between 2015 and 2017 saw the worst drought in the Western Cape supply area in recorded history. At the end of the winter rainfall season in 2017, the City of Cape Town (CCT), together with agricultural and other urban users, faced the prospect of surviving five months of summer with no (or very little) rainfall, with combined dam storage at only 38% of capacity. Dam levels were likely to reduce to close to 10% before the next rainy season, and there was no guarantee of rainfall. The CCT responded by embarking on an ambitious water resilience programme, aimed at reducing supply to a minimum while “Neil embraced alternative approaches to providing water and sanitation services that were tailored to the demographic and topographic realities in which unserved communities lived in South Africa. His approach made EWS a global reference for efficient, appropriate and sustainable water supply and sanitation service delivery.” Neil meeting Bill Gates in Durban “His management style, methods and results were so ground-breaking and relevant for other low- and middle-income countries in the so- called ‘developing world’ that organisations such as the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation started using his expertise and experiences to inform water and sanitation challenges across the globe.”