The final Millennium Development Goals (MDG) evaluation report showed global progress in drinking water access, yet challenges remain in achieving sanitation goals. The UN Millennium Water Group pointed out that the current pace of progress is still too slow to reach the goals in Africa where very few countries had met the targets.

Additionally, the long-term sustainability of current achievements is not guaranteed. With the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), solving WASH–related challenges in Africa will require reaching a wider audience with lessons learned from best practices. This approach will hopefully contribute to addressing systemic issues with sustainability and indiscriminate approaches that plague the WASH sector in West Africa.