Resolving strategy paradoxes of water loss reduction: A synthesis in Jakarta

This paper intends to serve as a ‘thought’ piece, by opening scope for re-framing the issue of water loss reduction. The paper presents an exploration about what the term ‘strategy’ contributes to water loss reduction, through a literature review. The paper considers 10 strategic paradoxes and uses these to structure a discussion of utilities’ approaches to reducing water losses and the assumptions underlying the development and deployment of strategies to this end. The paper uses a case study of an Indonesian utility (and also draws evidence from other developing countries) to exemplify how strategies and their underlying assumptions may lead to suboptimal approaches to reducing water losses.