Mission to Senegal – July 2023
Between July 12 and 21, 2023, HAMAP-Humanitaire’s project officer visited Senegal. Her mission had the following objectives:
- Visit the Louly Ngogom project with AEAG’s external relations manager, Valérie Bayche, and the general manager of the pS Eau program, Christophe Le Jallé.
- Deepen knowledge of the Vélingara area, with a view to setting up and drafting the project.
- Meet new stakeholders in the sector and strengthen existing partnership relations to improve project quality according to three criteria: gender, environment and strengthening the relationship with local partner APIT.
Visit to Louly Ngogom’s project
After several meetings with partners in Dakar, our project officer travelled to the commune of Sandiara to visit the water network extension project. The project, which is now complete, has connected over 110 households to the water supply network managed by SEOH. It was financed by the Agence de l’eau Adour-Garonne, the project’s main donor, the Occitanie region and SIVOM SAGe, Sandiara’s decentralized cooperation partner. In addition to AEAG’s external relations officer and the general manager of pS Eau, the delegation for this visit included the engineer in charge of the works, the person in charge of running awareness-raising sessions in schools and the commune’s technical officer.
After visiting a number of households and noting the good pressure at individual connections, the delegation went on to the Louly Ngogom school, which has benefited on several occasions from funding from the Occitanie region and the support of local operators, and which has now been connected to the network. The visit ended with an exchange with several users of the network, in Godaguène, who spoke of the changes brought about by a water point in their households, relieving them of the painful chore of fetching water and poor water quality.
The trip also provided an opportunity to develop and visit possible activities and target localities for a second phase of the project. The deputy mayor of Sandiara drew attention to the need to connect other localities to drinking water. Indeed, it is estimated that a dozen villages still have no access to running water, and there is a lack of data on water access and service rates, as well as harmonized technical solutions.
Exploratory mission to Velingara (Casamance)
In the commune of Velingara, the sanitation access rate is around 45.7%, and the water access rate was 45.3%. The Nassouroulahi district, located on the outskirts of the town, suffers particularly from a lack of sanitation infrastructure and access to water. This poses major health risks, and exacerbates the already high level of child malnutrition.
The aim of this mission to Vélingara was to deepen our knowledge of the area, meet the project’s stakeholders, inform them of our approach and gather their advice. This enabled us to rectify a number of activities and understand the project’s specific objectives. The need for water in the district was confirmed, and the support of partners in the school environment appeared to be a central need of the project, around which awareness-raising and training activities could be mobilized.
Following this visit, a number of points need to be borne in mind when setting up activities and drafting the project:
- The need underlined by all players for awareness-raising and training in schools
- We need to think about the role and missions of the sanitation committees, the number of committees to be formed and their compatibility with the lack of infrastructure.
- While it may be possible to collaborate with municipal agents as individuals, association with committees could be risky. The latter, untrained and without a precise mission, should initially be given more information.
This mission has provided a number of answers for future projects. It also enabled us to strengthen partnerships with APIT, AEAG and the pS Eau, and to envisage better integration of the APIT-HAMAP-Humanitaire partnership within the country’s CSO networks in the sector.
