Engineer in Building and Public Works techniques, Tibus Kouadio is the Managing Director of a construction service company. With a staff of 25 employees, he designs architectural plans, carries out technical feasibility studies and supervises construction sites.

Indeed, business was going well enough for him. One of the projects he carried out provided him with nearly 20 million in profits. Suddenly, everything stopped. Markets have become increasingly rare. A set of difficulties that led him to the crisis forcing him to lay off to keep only 5 positions. Unable to bear the maintenance costs, Tibus is also forced to resell the 4 public transport vehicles he owned.

As part of market development activities, the USAID-funded Sanitation Service Delivery Project (SSD) is working with city councils to establish a supply chain. The objective of the project is to train and engage the private sector to provide sanitation services to low-income households through commercial provision. "Sani Plus" is a brand of quality and low-cost sanitation products created by the project.

Going to Abobo City Hall for an administrative formality, Tibus discovers on a bulletin board, the call for proposals of the SSD project to recruit VSEs interested in sanitation marketing. "I thought to myself why not try," he said.

A few months after his training on the construction of Sani Plus sanitation products, Tibus said he was impressed by the level of quality with which the works are carried out. For him, the process used to make a lost well with concrete nozzles is quite innovative.

A rigorous worker, respecting the quality standards of the Sani Plus brand, Tibus has begun to make a name for itself in the sanitation marketing sector. He was doing more and more works. Although the revenues generated by the sale of Sani Plus products were quite lower than the costs of building large real estate projects, Tibus did not give up. "I would rather earn a little bit every day than win big once and have nothing left after that," he continues.

This''Sani Plus'' contractor currently has at least 115 sanitation facilities (toilets, septic tanks and cesspools) built in the municipality of Abobo. This generated a turnover of more than USD 19,000. In addition, Tibus has created a second company exclusively dedicated to the Sani Plus sanitation products business. This company employs 7 full-time young graduates whose salaries are financed through the sale of sanitation products. According to him, the money generated by the sale of Sani Plus sanitation products is very useful to him. "Often I take Sani Plus' money to do bidding on public contracts, and that helps me a lot," concluded Tibus Kouadio.

The first Annual General Assembly of the Pan-African Association of non-sewer Sanitation Operators (PASA), was held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire from 15 to 17 October 2019. This meeting, which was intended for coordination, orientation and monitoring the implementation of the PASA action plan, brought together about fifty representatives of African Emptier Associations and partners.

During two (2) days, the sanitation operators discussed about the situation and needs of sewerage service in each of their countries, including the assessment of the implementation of every association action and came to an agreement on what the APAA expects from governments and partners.

During the opening of the meeting, the President of APAA, Mr Ibra SOW urged his peers to focus on action: to act in order to address the issue of outdated equipment in order to promote better quality services, widespread use of mechanical collection, formalization of operators to ensure that there are faecal sludge treatment stations in all the cities across Africa,. He expressed his conviction that the General Assembly will be the trigger mechanism for a better future in the sector of sanitation.

For his part, Mr Sylvain Usher, the Executive Director of AWA indicated that he appreciated the testimonies given by the emptiers themselves and how through the Association, their activities which were previously frowned upon, have now generated interest in their different countries as they have been associated with projects concerning improvement in sanitation. He urged them to move forward to ensure improve sanitation sector in Africa.

Mr Aka Lambert, representative of the Minister of Sanitation and Hygiene, announced the will of the Ministry to assist Ivorian emptiers and to PASA in general.

The participants believed the meeting had been an enriching one. The discussions held by the peers had made them understand a new reality prevailing in other countries; this would help them to adjust their action plan and to have the necessary responses to address the challenges in their respective countries. They expressed the desire that meetings of this nature should be organized regularly to ensure that all the countries achieve progress together.

The General Assembly of PASA ended with the launch of the initiative “One City, One Faecal Sludge Treatment Plant”.

The Pan-African Association of non-sewer Sanitation Operators was set up on 17 February, 2019 in Cape Town, South Africa, on the sidelines of the AfricaSan5/FSM5 International Conference.

Côte d’Ivoire now has a National Toilets for All Association (ANT-CI). The constituent general Assembly was held on Wednesday 30 October 2019 at the premises of the National Corporation for Sanitation and Drainage (ONAD), with the Director General of this national entity also in attendance including the Executive Director of the AfWA. At the end of the elections, Ms. Sié Julienne, Hydraulic Engineer at ONAD, was elected from among her peers to lead the Association for a 3-year term of office.

ANT—CI emanates from the World Toilet Organization, founded in 2001 and which aims at forming a network of all health and sanitation organizations in order to share the know-how, to exercise its visibility in the media and lobby governments for the implementation of more effective public health and sanitation policies. Indeed, according to the 2017 WHO-UNICEF Common Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation, about 60 % of the world population, representing 4.5 billion people do not have toilets in their houses; or they have toilets but faecal matter cannot be hygienically managed and 892 million people in the world practise open defecation since they do not have toilets. The faecal matter is therefore not collected nor is it treated.

To contribute to mitigating this state of affairs and promote access to toilets for all, the Scientific and Technical Council of the AfWA, through its Specialized Committee in charge of Sanitation, has encouraged its members to set up National Toilets Associations in their countries. Thus, the one in Côte d’Ivoire has been established within a local context marked by 22% of the total population, or 3.5 million people engaged in open air defecation (MICS, 2016) . Thus, the ANT hopes to contribute to the government’s goal of totally eradicating open air defecation in urban centers and to curb it in the rural communities from 51% to 15% by 2030. The new Chairperson of ANT thanked her peers for electing her and appealed for unity among the stakeholders in the sanitation sector in order to achieve the goals set by the Association.

Whereas climate change is causing torrential rains in some regions of Africa, it is the source of persistent drought in the southern part of Africa. (By Vivian Forson)

After three years of water shortage, the situation at the end of summer 2017-2018 (last winter in the Northern Hemisphere) reached a critical level in Cape Town (South Africa).

While addressing the media last Monday, the South African Minister for Housing and Water Resources, Lindiwe Sisulu, tried as much as possible but weighed each of her words: Objective: not to create any panic. All the same, the situation is serious. South Africa is facing an unprecedented water stress, after an unusually hot and dry summer, a lower than average rainfall and an increase in water consumption. The levels of dams throughout the country have fallen by between 10 and 60% compared with 2018 levels, according to a recent report issued by the Department of Water Resources.

Worst drought in history

“Rainfalls are more and more difficult to predict. What we have seen, as compared to other regions of the world, is that the dry season has become longer, harsher and more intense. “Climate change is real and it is affecting South Africa”, explained the Minister, cited an AFP source. But access to water depends on three distinct but interdependent factors. The first and the most obvious is the level of rainfall. The second is the design of the water distribution systems and the third is the way people react when there is shortage. To avoid the worst, the authorities have decided to take the lead. “We are working hard to avoid the fearful phenomenon of zero day and we have therefore announced water supply restrictions”, Lindiwe Sisulu ended up by admitting after a long face to face with the media. Officially, the South African authorities have imposed restrictions on water in the major cities of the country. Outcome: several zones from the center to the north of the country have been without water in the last few days whereas South Africa is confronted with a heat wave. This scenario reminds us of what happened last year in Cape Town, at the south-western tip of South Africa, with 4 million inhabitants. In 2018, the city narrowly escaped the zero day after drastic water restrictions then in force. According to Garth Sampson, spokesperson of the South African Meteorological Office in Port Elizabeth, “we must pass on the message. It is terrible. This will not go away. Several records have been broken”.

(Agence Ecofin) – During the year 2020, the water supply and rural sanitation project will initiate work for the supply of potable water to 60 villages in Cameroon, according to sources, during the first session of the steering committee of this government project.

The project, worth about USD 305,000 will assist in building 80 water towers with an overall capacity of 8900 cubic meters, 995 standpipes, laying of 242 kms of pipelines. The installation of solar panels in the pumping stations has also been envisaged under the project.

This project which will cover a period of 4 years will contribute to the improvement of access to potable water in Cameroon, which resource is only 45% available in the rural communities as against about 77% in the urban areas, according to the figures conducted by the National Statistical Institute (INS) in 2018.

 A young entrepreneur living in Benin, Paul Kpadonou has always dreamed of becoming a successful businessman. Paul, 30, started his professional career selling shrouds and garden decorations on the side of the highway in the municipality of Abomey Calavi.

During a campaign to promote the "WC Mimin" brand in his neighbourhood, Paul was seduced by the new product presented: innovative toilets that eliminate bad smells and prevent the presence of insects. "I understood that this product would make many people happy, because the traditional toilets used by households are full of insects with nauseating odours," he said. Indeed, access to toilets remains a major problem in Benin. According to the 2018 National Health Survey , only 22% of the urban population uses basic sanitation facilities, while 26% of Beninese use shared toilets and 38% practice open defecation. "Wc Mimin" is a latrine brand created as part of the Sanitation Service Delivery (SSD) project activities. An urban sanitation service delivery project funded by USAID. This project aims to facilitate household access to sanitation products by training private sector micro-sanitation entrepreneurs to provide these services.

Enthused by the prospect of helping to improve public health in his community, Paul became interested in the SSD project to benefit from the production tools as well as the entrepreneurs who had been pre-selected. Unfortunately because it was installed a little too close to an affiliated contractor, the project team decided not to integrate it into the model in order not to create unfair competition. However, Paul was not discouraged. He turned to the entrepreneurs involved in the SSD project to learn more about their work so that he too could build latrines. A few weeks later, Paul quickly became an expert in the construction of Mimin toilet toilets.

Determined to succeed, this young businessman drew inspiration from one of the mould models borrowed from an entrepreneur to make his own. Now with its own production facilities, it has started the large-scale installation of latrines by personally advertising to households.

To attract more customers, young Paul built a model of a "Mimin" latrine in his home and offered its use for free. A process that has attracted many curious people. The message quickly spread to the community and made him the King of toilets in Abomey Calavy. Thus, after 18 months of activities with the SSD project, Paul built and installed 1380 WC Mimin toilets for a turnover of more than 60 million CFA francs and a profit margin of more than 11 million CFA francs.