Two representatives respectively from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the USAID West Africa Bureau took part from November 21st to 22nd 2017, in a session of exchanges with the AfWA Executive Director assisted by the staff of the Programs Office namely: Mrs. Erin McCusker, the person in charge of the Senior programs at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (FBMG) and Mrs. Margaret Ramalho MCMORROW, P.E., in charge of the Environment and Agreement Officer's Representative (AOR), in the USAID West Africa Bureau.

The agenda included amongst others: the progress report of the activities of the programs relating to the “Capacity building of the African sanitation operators through peer partnership training (RASOP-Africa)” and to the “AfWA Capacity Building (Africap)”, the level of implementation of the AfWA 2013-2017 strategic plan, the presentation of the 2018-2022 strategic plan as well as the statement of the preparations of the AfWA Congress scheduled in Bamako on February 2018. At the end of the meeting, both representatives encouraged the whole of the current institutional reforms within the AfWA Executive Office on the one hand and congratulated the Institution for the satisfactory results achieved through the AfriCap and RASOP-Africa programs on the other hand.

As a reminder, the three (3) years period (2015-2018) RASOP Africa Project aims at improving the covering and quality of the autonomous sanitation service and fecal sludge management in five African cities including Bamako (Mali), Yamoussoukro (Côte d’Ivoire), Yaounde (Cameroon), Kampala (Uganda) and Lusaka (Zambia) with the Office National de l’Assainissement du Sénégal (ONAS) (Senegal National Sanitation Board) and the Municipality of eThekwini in Durban in South Africa as mentors. The project is financially supported by the BMGF up to 2.54 million US dollars.

As for Africap, it is a 4 year (2015-2019) capacity building program of the African Water Association (AfWA) with a USAID financing up to 2 million US dollars which promotes partnership in the field of drinking water. The main objective of the program is to reinforce the AfWA so as it can improve regional coordination and collaboration for the water/sanitation initiatives, the harmonization of the water/sanitation policies, the capacity building of the water/sanitation stakeholders and the dissemination of the best practices and the innovative knowledge products, in order to develop water/sanitation services in West Africa.