Key policies and governance approach

Senegal continues efforts to achieve water and sanitation targets and the reduction of inequalities between urban and rural areas, even if this requires significant investments [10]. The Government of Senegal has set ambitious targets to boost the overall rate of basic water and sanitation services and to meet the SDGs by 2025, including a commitment to eliminate the practice of open defecation. In 2016, Senegal released a new Program of Priority Actions for the implementation of the Integrated Water Resources Management Plan for 2018-2030, setting out key objectives for strengthening governance and management of water resources [5].

Senegal’s approach to reach the SDGs has centered on sector reforms to lay the groundwork for improved governance and financial resource allocation, and on leveraging the private sector to expand and improve quality and sustainability of service delivery. The reforms include the consolidation of responsibility for water and sanitation policy, as well as water resource management within the Ministère de l’Eau et de l’Assainissement (MEA) [5].

In order to address challenges in the sector, a Sectoral Development Policy (LPSD) 2016-2025 also established specific offices with responsibility for asset management and advancing rural water services, and for management of urban and rural sanitation with a mandate to bolster private sector participation in the operation and maintenance of public sanitation facilities through service contracts. Ongoing sanitation reforms such as the Sanitation Code and the National Rural Sanitation Strategy (SNAR) and its associated implementation plan further improve the foundation for effective non-sewered sanitation and fecal sludge management [5].

Successes and Remaining Challenges

Despite much progress in rural water supply in recent years, challenges remain in accelerating increases to basic access and to improving the quality of service, including obsolete or dilapidated infrastructure; limited capacity to meet growing demand; physical, chemical, and microbiological issues with water quality; low efficiency in operations; and difficulty in setting and applying cost-realistic tariffs [5].

Ongoing sanitation sector reforms provide opportunities to make sustainable progress toward sanitation and hygiene goals, but increased focus and technical assistance, as well as large public and private investment are required to sustainably improve rural sanitation and fecal sludge management in small towns and newly urbanizing areas [5].

In rural areas, where ongoing reforms also lay the groundwork for private sector participation, success will hinge in large part on strengthening and facilitating the sanitation market to better link supply and demand. This will require increasing the capacities of private actors to meet the demand for latrine products that are both desirable and affordable, as well as carrying out behaviour change, promotion, and marketing campaigns that help grow household demand. Financing is a critical element for the nascent sanitation market, and subsidies of some form are likely to continue to be necessary to build the market for sanitation products and businesses, and to reach the poorest households for whom even the most affordable products remain out of reach. However, it is important that both donor and Government of Senegal subsidies to individual households and businesses are properly managed to align positive incentives and prevent the emerging sanitation market from being distorted and undermined [5].

In Senegal’s latest progress report on SDG indicator 6.5.1 (2020), for the four dimensions of IWRM, ‘funding’ was recorded as the lowest average score (37 points out of 100), which corresponds to a “low” level. This was followed by the dimension "institutions and participation" (50 points out of 100) which falls between the “medium-low” and “medium high" level. These scores reveal a still insufficient mobilization of financial resources for IWRM implementation activities in Senegal and a lack of participation of actors, especially vulnerable groups, and weak intersectoral coordination [7].  

Whilst the degree of implementation for “institutions and participation" recognises the effectiveness of the authorities and institutions at the national level with clear roles and the beginnings of private sector involvement, the level of intersectoral coordination, the participation of citizens, especially of the weakest, remains insufficient at all levels of intervention. Consequently, there is a real need for sensitization and capacity building in order to accelerate the processes of reform of water policies and laws as well as the operationalization of water resources management plans (management of water resources). More work is also needed to promote inclusive multi-stakeholder participation (gender issues) and the creation of competent local institutions for water resources management (monitoring, police, arbitration, etc.). Legal frameworks should also help address institutional and gender disparities in water resource management at all levels [7].

Empowering women, youth, and people of different abilities to engage and lead on WASH issues represent cross-cutting challenges, as well as important opportunities for institutionalizing and accelerating progress within the sector. In Senegal, women are largely responsible for water for their families for drinking, washing, cooking, and cleaning. Women and girls are more vulnerable to abuse and attack while walking to and using a toilet or openly defecating, and women have specific hygiene needs during menstruation, pregnancy and child rearing. Despite this, women are underrepresented in water and sanitation decision-making, compromising less than 8% of the total technical workforce in WASH according to the most recent estimate. Improving the inclusion of women, youth and differently-abled people as decision makers in WASH is a persistent challenge, but one that must be addressed in order to ensure that solutions in the sector are relevant and durable [5].

Initiatives and Development Plans

The Senegalese government will devote 195 million euros to water and sanitation in 2022. This budget will allow the consolidation of four programmes, these are: coordination and administrative management, integrated water resources management, access to drinking water, sanitation and rainwater management. The Senegalese authorities are relying on several initiatives, such as the reform of rural water supply with the creation of the Office des Forages Ruraux (OFOR), the effective implementation of the first public service delegation (DSP) in rural areas and the development of a national strategy for water quality [11]. 

In addition, in November 2021, Sen’Eau, the company responsible for the operation and distribution of drinking water in urban and peri-urban areas in Senegal, received a promise of financing of 15 million euros from the West African Banking Company (CBAO) to strengthen its operational efficiency. In two years, Sen’Eau, a technical partner of the French group Suez, has distributed 300 million m³ of water in 11 regions of Senegal [11]. 

In support of the ‘Team Europe’ approach, in February 2021, the European Investment Bank (EIB) confirmed CFAF 75 billion (€114.5 million) of new support to strengthen drinking water supply to the cities of Saint-Louis, Kaolack and Kolda, alongside improving waste management in cities across the country including Saint-Louis, Podor, Matam, Thiès, Mbour, Ziguinchor, Kolda and Sédhiou. This will ensure that 634,000 people will have adequate access to drinking water and provide subsidies water connections for 350,000 more [12].