College of Business and Economics | Annual Report 2023 73 country. As part of the deliverables for the project, the team had to organise a seminar with all the key stakeholders to get input for the work that had been done already. The seminar was held on 13 September 2023, on Microsoft Teams and was attended by 54 delegates. Part of the attendees were the colleagues from the Department of Water and Sanitation, Department of Cooperative Governance, National Treasury, and the South African Local Government Association. On 6 March 2024, the team had hosted a successful final reference group meeting regarding the project. The PEERC team are already planning for the second phase of the project, which takes forward some key recommendations and areas for further analysis. Assessing the Welfare Impacts of Municipal Short-term Responses to Water Supply Crises − Water Research Commission At the beginning of 2022, PEERC received funding from the WRC to undertake a project entitled, ‘An analysis of the economic efficiency of municipal short-term responses to the water supply crises in South Africa’. The study is based on the responses by Nelson Mandela Bay and the City of Cape Town municipalities to water supply crises that they are facing and the impact on the welfare of water consumers within their jurisdictions. To date, PEERC has successfully completed the theoretical review of the project, a case study on Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality and the City of Cape Town Municipality. The team has also organised two workshops, one was held in collaboration with the City of Cape Town on 9 November 2023, and the team saw a great turnout from the colleagues in the water sector. The team later held a workshop at the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality offices in Gqeberha on 15 November 2023, and it was a successful workshop with a great turnout. The expected date of completion for the project is 31 March 2024. The project is coordinated by Prof Stephen Hosking, Senior Research Associate at PEERC. PUBLICATIONS AND WORKING PAPERS PEERC has published in national and international academic journals during the 2023/24 academic year. Delphin Kamanda Espoir, Regret Sunge, Tii Nchofoung, Andrew Adewale Alola, Analysing the drivers of ecological footprint in Africa with machine learning algorithm, Environmental Impact report will offer a valuable tool to policymakers and potential investors in South Africa. Medium- to long-term goals include the development of an interactive digital dashboard and a webinar. Furthermore, this work has absorbed two interns that were appointed this year. Collaboration with HydroDrip (Pty) Ltd PEERC is in the initial phase of a collaboration with HydroDrip. The collaboration will be looking at introducing a virtual water credit market for water consumers. The aim is to pilot new technology to measure water consumption in water consumer units and to develop a virtual water credit market where consumers can trade water savings with other water users. This system intends to improve the allocative efficiency of water by promoting water savings in lower water users and allocating such savings to higher water users. Collaboration with Watershedding (Pty) Ltd PEERC has been in talks with Watershedding (Pty) Ltd for possible collaborations with the Water Portfolio. The collaboration is inspired by the recent water supply challenges in the country. The collaboration looks at exploring digital water demand management software solutions and water conservation initiatives within vulnerable communities to reduce non-revenue water for municipalities. CURRENT PROJECTS PEERC is currently concluding two projects for the Water Research Commission (WRC). Introducing Dynamic Tariffs in South Africa’s Water System − Water Research Commission In 2021, PEERC received grant funding from the WRC to look at introducing dynamic pricing into the South African water sector. The project concludes in March 2024. To date, PEERC has achieved all the necessary deliverables for the project. These include a review of international case studies that applied dynamic pricing in the water sector, a review of the current water pricing system in South Africa and comprehensive focus group discussions with key stakeholders in the South African water sector. The latter objective explored the configuration of the water value chain and explored methods to implement dynamic pricing at various levels of the water value chain in the
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