Region: Sub-Saharan Africa
Country: Senegal
Sector: Water and Sanitation
Keywords: Knowledge Lab, Water
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Document Summary:
This contains a field note on the role of the private sector to improve rural water and urban sanitation services in Senegal.
Document Details:
An exciting shift is happening in Senegal’s water and sanitation sectors. Long lauded for its successful urban water Public Private Partnership (PPP), which began in 1996, Senegal is now seeking Private Sector Participation (PSP) in its rural water and urban/peri-urban sanitation sectors.
After years of reform and large development programs in rural water and urban sanitation, the sectors still face overwhelming institutional and infrastructure challenges, which serve as the major motivating factors for this new direction. In rural water, the majority of local community consumer associations (ASUFORs), established as part of previous reforms, have side-stepped their management, advocacy and quality control mandates and are instead acting as water operators, distributing directly to customers. The limited professional standards, efficiency, and management skills of the ASUFORs (and commune Municipalities, in the case of urban sanitation) to manage growing multi-village systems is one key reason private operators are being invited into the sector. Another is the huge investment need for renewing and expanding water and sanitation infrastructure, which is not possible within the current financially unsustainable models. The shift to private participation also reflects the Government of Senegal’s (GoS) commitment to meeting the country’s water and sanitation Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The private sector participation trend is gathering momentum. Parliament just adopted a new PPP act, building on the legacy of Senegal’s openness to private sector engagement in water and sanitation. Two rural water affermage procurements are already underway and a new model for partnering with private operators is being launched in Dakar’s urban sanitation system. Best practices, such as clustering projects to increase their financial viability, are among the innovations already being applied in these developments.
It is important to note that Senegal has no water and sanitation regulatory authority; both sectors are regulated via contracts. There is ongoing dialogue on the topic in order to address the issue of regulation for the next generation of reforms.
The successful implementation and impact of these PPPs will depend largely on the strength of the new institutional frameworks being established. Senegal’s community of partners have a strong role to play in supporting these new institutional frameworks, namely in technical and financial management capacity building for key institutions such as the new Office of Rural Borehole Management (OFOR) and much older Office of National Urban Sanitation (ONAS).
Updated: April 12, 2022