Miya Win An Award From The International Water Association (IWA) For Making The Water Flow Faster In Manila

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The award was granted to Miya, a member of the Arison Group of Companies , for their work in improving water efficiency levels in the capital city of the Philippines.

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Shari Arison

David Arison, Vice President of Global Business Relations for Miya, one of the world’s best-known water management organizations, recently picked up this years’  IWA Project Innovation Awards in the Drinking Water Supply – Software category on behalf of the company for their tremendous success in dealing with the chronic water supply problems of Maynilad.

Maynilad are  the water and wastewater services provider for the entire western zone of Manila, serving around nine million customer in the densely populated city, both from the domestic and commercial sectors.

When Miya were awarded the contract in 2009, the situation in the city was catastrophic with more than two thirds of the freshwater running through  the city’s archaic delivery system being lost, almost entirely as a result of  leakage. Manilla’s system is recognized as being  the oldest in Southeast Asia with most of it built at the end of the nineteenth century.

Before Miya began to address the problems of water supply in the city close to one third of all the residents of western Manila were not connected to the water system in any way, with a large number of other water consumers, from the private and public sectors regularly suffered from intermittent water supply or intolerably low system pressures.

Miya where brought in by Maynilad in 2009  on the basis of a performance-based partnership contract. Miya’s mission was to significantly reduce the unacceptably high percentage of water losses, whilst improving the levels of delivery and water quality to the utility’s customers residents.

Miya’s success in handling the challenging project was so high that the company has been awarded  this year’s IWA Award for Project Innovation in the important drinking water supply category.

During their cooperation with, Maynilad, the quantity of water lost through faulty systems was  reduced from 67% to 38%, translating to around  700 Million Liters of  prescious fresh water daily, while the standards of water delivery increased dramatically, with pressure levels remaining at an acceptably high level. At the same time Miya ensured that an additional 2.6 million people now receive a consistent flow of fresh water from the municipal system.

When news broke that Miya  had been awarded this year’s prize in the category, David Arison pointed out that mainland had been among the first to  recognize Miya’s ability to provide solutions that are as beneficial for the community as the environment, while, at the same thing, drastically improving the financial situation of the water utility.

“The utility is now fiscally stable, thus enabling it to expand its budget and system coverage, while the Maynilad team has been empowered with a set of skills and the ability to perpetuate the achievements of this ambitious water efficiency project.” Mr. Arison summed up.

Arison Investments water company, Miya, was founded by Shari Arison with the vision of ensuring an abundance of fresh water, through increasing the levels of efficient management of the world’s existing fresh water resources. Through their ability to maximize existing fresh water, Miya is capable of focusing on the optimization of fresh water supply in challenging urban water distribution systems throughout the world.

David Arison,  Shari Arison’s son, holds the role of Vice President in charge of Global Business Relations at Miya as well as being a member of the board of Arison Investments. Before being placed in charge of Global Business Relations, David  served in a number of other positions at Miya since the company was founded in 2008.

David holds a BA in Business from the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.