Between 12 and 21 July 2023, HAMAP-Humanitaire's project officer travelled to Senegal. Her mission had the following aims:
- Visiting the Louly Ngogom project with the external relations officer of the AEAG, Ms Valerie Bayche, and the director general of pS Eau, Mr Christophe Le Jalle
- Deepening field knowledge in Velingara, with a view to designing and writing up the project
- Meeting new actors in the sector and strengthening existing partnerships in order to improve project quality along three lines: gender, the environment, and a stronger relationship with the local partner APIT.
Visiting the Louly Ngogom project
After several meetings with partners in Dakar, our project officer travelled to the commune of Sandiara to visit the water network extension project. This project, whose works are now complete, has connected more than 110 households to the water supply network managed by SEOH. It was funded by the Adour-Garonne water agency, the project's majority funder, the Occitanie region and SIVOM SAGe, the decentralised cooperation partner of the commune of Sandiara. For this visit, the delegation included, alongside the AEAG external relations officer and the director general of pS Eau, the engineer in charge of the works, the person running the awareness sessions in schools and the commune's technical officer.
After visiting several households and finding good pressure at the individual connections, the delegation went to the school in Louly Ngogom, which has received funding several times from the Occitanie region and support from organisations in that region, and which has been connected to the network. The visit ended with a discussion with several network users in Godaguene, who spoke of the changes brought about by having a water point at home, relieving them of a gruelling water-fetching chore and of poor water quality.
This trip also made it possible to design and visit the possible activities and localities targeted in a second phase of the project. The deputy mayor of Sandiara drew attention to the need to connect other localities to drinking water. An estimated ten or so villages still have no running water, and there is a lack of data on rates of access to water and of service coverage, as well as a lack of harmonised technical solutions.
Exploratory mission to Velingara (Casamance)
In the commune of Velingara the rate of access to sanitation is around 45.7%, and the rate of access to water was 45.3%. The Nassouroulahi neighbourhood, on the edge of the town, suffers particularly from the lack of sanitation infrastructure and access to water. This creates significant health risks and worsens child malnutrition, which is already high.
The aim of this mission to Velingara was to deepen the knowledge we had, to meet the project's stakeholders, to inform them of our approach and to gather their advice. It made it possible to adjust a number of activities and to understand the project's specific objectives. The need for water in the neighbourhood was confirmed, and support to partners in schools emerged as a central need of the project, around which awareness and training activities can be organised.
Following this trip, several points call for our attention in designing the activities and writing up the project:
- The need, underlined by everyone involved, for awareness-raising and training in schools
- A reflection on the role and remit given to sanitation committees, on the number of committees to be trained and on how that fits with a lack of infrastructure
- While working with municipal staff as individuals can be considered, an association with the commissions could be risky. Without training and without a clear remit, they would first need to be much better informed.
This mission provided a number of answers ahead of the design of future projects. It also strengthened the partnership with APIT, as well as with the AEAG and pS Eau, and opened the way to better integrating the APIT and HAMAP-Humanitaire partnership within the country's civil society networks in this sector.
