In February 2018, Bamako, the capital city of Mali will host work of the 19th Congress of the African Water Association. AfWA Congress is a biiennal event that is held in an African capital city. Every two years, AfWA does organize a Congress in an African city, mostly in the Capital City. After the 18th congress held in Nairobi in 2016, Mali was selected to organize the next Congress at the end of the collection and analysis of the various candidacies.

In order to take up the challenge of the organization and mobilization, a delegation of three (3) Top level Staff of the Mali Organizing Committee carried out a benchmarking visit from august 22nd to 26th in abidjan, namely Moussa SANGARE, SOMAPEP Administrative and General Means Manager, Abdoul Aziz TRAORE and KOUYATE M. Lamine, respectively SOMAGEP Logistics Departement Manager and Head of the Department of Finance and Accounts. The members of this delegation discussed with the Management of SODECI (Côte d’Ivoire Water Supply Company) and the Executive Directorate of the African Water Association over 5 days. The goal of these discussions was to ask about the Experience of Abidjan which hosted the AfWA Congress 4 years ago. All the aspects relating to this organization, namely, logistics, the communication plan, the management of the Congress, were reviewed. Procedures regarding the organization of the previous Congresses were also presented to the delegation. At the end of the visit, Moussa SANGARE, SOMAPEP Administrative and General Means Manager, speaking on behalf of the delegation, expressed his fully satisfaction. This visit, as well as the quality of the presentations that were shared, has met our expectations, he said. Our travel was worth it, he concluded.

In his turn, SODECI’s Deputy Managing Director Dominique Da CRUZ expressed the Malian delegation the availability of his organization to accompany Mali in the organization of the Congress of the African Water Association in February 2018 in Bamako. The Organizing Committee of AfWA Congress Bamako 2018 is composed of the staff of the two companies, i.e. SOMAGEP (Malian Drinking Water Company - Ltd) and SOMAPEP (Malian Drinking Water Patrimony Company - Ltd), which carried the Malian candidature.