The West Africa Municipal Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Activity (MuniWASH) is a five-year project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Tetra Tech in collaboration with the African Water Association (AfWA). The goal of the Activity is to help municipal governments, national directorates and agencies, and service providers maintain and expand water, sanitation, and hygiene services to meet basic needs of populations, including underserved groups, living in urban and peri-urban areas. MuniWASH will select eight municipalities in Côte d'Ivoire and eight municipalities in Benin to benefit from this project.

In May 2020, the first meeting was held at the Direction Générale de la Décentralisation et du Développement Local to introduce the project and convene with representatives of ten pre-qualified municipalities in Côte d’Ivoire. The meeting was attended by the Deputy Managing Director of Decentralization, the Union of Cities and Municipalities of Côte d'Ivoire, mayors and technical directors. These ten pre-qualified municipalities were selected from a total of 200 municipalities in Côte d'Ivoire. MuniWASH led a transparent and participatory municipal selection process that saw the involvement of all key actors in the sector, namely: the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization, the Ministry of Hydraulics, the Ministry of Sanitation and Hygiene, the National Office for Sanitation and Drainage (ONAD), the National Office for Drinking Water (ONEP), the Water Distribution Company of Côte d'Ivoire (SODECI) and the Union of Cities and Municipalities of Côte d'Ivoire (UVICOCI).

The purpose of this initial meeting was to inform the pre-qualified municipalities of the final qualification stage in the selection process. This phase will be carried out by means of a diagnostic study and evaluation of water and sanitation needs in each pre-qualified municipality. The results of this study will make it possible to make the final selection to retain eight out of the ten municipalities.

As part of the finalization process, the shortlisted towns were asked to provide additional data for this study. Mr. Safaa Fakorede, the Chief of Party of the USAID/MuniWASH project, launched an appeal to the pre-qualified municipalities by stating: "I encourage the pre-qualified municipalities to give themselves every opportunity to be part of the final selection by participating in data collection process and to involve all their available staff to carry out this study."

Representatives of the pre-qualified municipalities expressed great interest in the USAID/MuniWASH project. Access to water and sanitation services is an enormous challenge for the municipalities in Côte d’Ivoire. The USAID/MuniWASH project can provide strategic solutions to help them improve the provision of portable water supply and the availability of sanitation services to the most vulnerable and underserved households.

Dr. TAHET Noel, the Deputy Managing Director at the Direction Générale de la Décentralisation et du Développement Local, a USAID/MuniWASH project implementing partner, congratulated the ten prequalified municipalities and invited them to do everything they could to be selected during the final phase. According to Dr. Tahet, the involvement of the municipalities in the final data collection is the best way to measure commitment and participation of each pre-qualified municipality. The USAID/MuniWASH Project "will make a positive contribution to the lives of citizens," he concluded.