Senegal, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso have formed a regional sanitation platform through which they will share information and learn from each other on the success stories and challenges.
This is after officials from three the respective countries met on February 19 on the sidelines of the African Water and Sanitation Congress (Afwasa) at the Speke Resort, Munyonyo in Kampala.
In their discussion, they formally agreed to share innovations, training programmes and practical solutions to their effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 on sanitation by 2030.
Oumar Sene, the director of Sanitation in Senegal’s ministry of Water and Sanitation, explained: “For the start, we shall share experiences on regulations, infrastructure set up and different models of collecting and treatment of faecal sludge.”
The platform is expected to bring onboard more Afwasa member states from West Africa before the next continental body’s congress due in Cameroon in 2026. However, officials agreed to hold further discussion online in March this year for the platform activities to take off.
Sophietou Diop, the director of Partnership and Development at the Dakar-based advocacy group, SpeakUpAfrica, said West Africa is playing catch up as far as regional sanitation networks are concerned. She noted that East and Southern Africa have established and functional platforms where they collaborate on sanitation issues.
Delegates at the five-day Afwasa congress, which ends today, Thursday, February 20, have engaged in finding and sharing sustainable solutions for equitable sanitation and water access.
Understandably, most African countries are time-barred in their effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 6 target, which sets sanitation and water access for all by 2030.
However, Uganda is one of the best-performing countries on the continent as far as equitable water access is concerned. According to statistics, 79 per cent of the country’s 45 million people have access to safe water. However, the figures on sanitation are still low, with 7 per cent and 39 per cent in rural and urban areas respectively having good sanitation facilities.