Singapore spotlight: PUB and state-led innovation BOX 3 Singapore’s water transformation has been shaped by the leadership of the Public Utilities Board (PUB), which uniquely serves as both national water utility and regulator. A cornerstone of PUB’s strategy is its Living Lab initiative – a dedicated platform that provides real-world testbeds across water treatment plants, catchments and urban infrastructure to pilot emerging technologies.40 By offering controlled, operational environments and streamlined regulatory pathways, the Living Lab reduces adoption barriers and accelerates the transition from prototype to deployment. This enabling infrastructure has supported a range of local and global innovators, including Wateroam – a Top Innovator from the Forum’s UpLink Aquapreneur Innovation Initiative. With PUB’s backing, Wateroam was able to test and refine its portable filtration technologies, which are now used in more than 40 countries to provide clean drinking water in humanitarian and disaster-relief contexts. The success of Wateroam illustrates how public-sector de-risking and technical validation mechanisms can empower start-ups to scale beyond national borders. PUB complements these initiatives with innovation funding schemes and cross-sectoral partnerships, reinforcing Singapore’s position as a water innovation hub. Beyond technical piloting, PUB’s role extends into societal engagement: through education programmes and national campaigns, it helps cultivate public trust in advanced technologies such as NEWater41 – turning policy into practice through behavioural change and citizen buy-in. Accra’s water innovation ecosystem reflects both the urgency of its water challenges and the dynamism of grassroots responses. The city faces persistent infrastructure gaps, high non-revenue water losses and mounting threats from climate change and pollution. Yet these pressures have stimulated decentralized responses and new forms of public–private–community collaboration. At the governance level, the Ghana Water Limited (GWL), the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) and the Water Resources Commission (WRC) operate alongside national regulators such as the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) and the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources. Coordination among these actors has improved in recent years (E1), but mandate fragmentation, regulatory discontinuity and enforcement challenges continue to constrain innovation at scale. Public utilities are nonetheless piloting change: GWL is trialling smart metering and digital billing to reduce its 50% non-revenue water rate, while CWSA is shifting towards a rural utility model anchored in decentralized delivery and community participation.3.4 Accra Water-BOOST: Enabling Innovation for Future-Ready Cities 27

Water BOOST Enabling Innovation for Future Ready Cities 2025