Aqualia has joined the PPP For Cities project, an initiative the United Nations is promoting through its Regional Commission UNECE and its International Centre of Excellence on PPPs (ICoE) programme, which is led, in Spain, by the IESE Business School.

The full cycle water management company is joining the project as a specialist in the water sector with extensive experience in public-private collaboration.

Participating in the Advisory Council of the Specialist Centre on Cities, Aqualia will lead the project’s Water area, sharing its experience across the different working groups. The company will also contribute to activities that are geared towards promoting research, innovation and support for administrations throughout the world in the organisation, management and development of projects that involve public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the city arena.

The United Nations, through one of its five regional commissions (the UCECE), created the ICoE with the goal of becoming an international leader by creating best practices and standards in PPPs and helping governments to implement them. This centre builds on the work of six Specialised Centres (SCs) located in different parts of the world. The PPP For Cities Centre and the Centres in Paris and Moscow are the only ones in Europe.

The IESE Business School leads the SC on Citizen Services, which includes eight sectors of study, one of which is water, under the leadership of Aqualia.

 Rafael Pérez Feito, Aqualia's Director of International Operations commented:

 "Aqualia's incorporation as a member of the PPP for Cities Centre and leadership of the water area constitutes a step forward in the company's commitment to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals. The combination of the United Nations, an internationally prestigious business school like IESE and Aqualia, is the perfect platform for us to share our broad and varied national and international experience in projects involving Public-Private Partnerships."

Goals 1, 3 and 6 of the Sustainable Development Goals approved by the United Nations for the 2015-2030 period are directly related to water management. In addition goal 17 addresses  promoting different forms of collaboration, including public-private alliances of PPPs, as an essential tool for achieving these goals.

Aqualia: broad and recognized expertise in PPP projects

 Aqualia has extensive experience in the development of PPP projects, some of which have received different awards from the international community. One example is the water purification system in New Cairo, a project led by Aqualia in Egypt that received the Water Deal of the Year award in 2010 and the African PPP Water Deal of the Year award the following year. This infrastructure project was also chosen as the third best public-private partnership project by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank.

 The El Realito water supply project, in Mexico, has also received numerous awards, such as the Water Deal of the Year award in 2012 and the Latin American Water Deal of the Year award that same year.

Aqualia is the water management company of FCC, one of Europe's leading citizen services groups.

At present, it provides services to 1,100 municipalities in 22 countries spread across Europe, Middle East, Latin America and India.

Last year, the company had a turnover of €954 million euros and reached a record business portfolio of more than €15 billion euros.