We are pleased to share with you the new learning note produced by MuniWASH on the water and sanitation Cost needs assessment in Côte d'Ivoire. 

Summary 
In June30th, 2020, the West Africa Municipal Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (MuniWASH) Activity completed a needs assessment to quantify costs for sanitation improvements in eight municipalities in Cote d’Ivoire, which included Abengourou,
Abobo, Bouaké, Gagnoa, San Pedro, Soubré, Yamoussoukro, and Yopougon. The purposeof the assessment was to quantify the sanitation needs to achieve the national objective of "75% access to improved sanitation facilities in urban areas" by 2030, as outlined in the 2016 Sanitation and Drainage Sector Policy Letter approved by the Government of Cote d’Ivoire. As a result of the
assessment, the estimated costs for onsite sanitation in these municipalities are approximately XOF 77.5 billion, which includesXOF 74 billion for the construction of 130,040 toilets and XOF 3.5 billion to acquire 77 emptying trucks.

To read and download the French version, click here
To read and download the English version, click here

Authors 
Mamadou Ouattara
Knowledge Sharing and Learning Advisor 
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Join @USAID #MuniWASH and @AfricanWaterAssociation’s The Private Sector Role in Implementing Sustainable Development Goal 6 (#SDG6) session at @WaterForum9 in Dakar on March 24, 9-10:30am GMT. Our session will convene #WASH practitioners, private service operators, and government decision makers to discuss how private sector partnerships advance #WASH service expansion across Africa. Register for free today: urlz.fr/hEK1

August 19, 2021 
L’Association Nationale des Communes du Bénin (ANCB) chaired by Cotonou Mayor Luc Sètondji ATROKPO and the USAID/West Africa Municipal Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Activity (MuniWASH) now work together for a clear improvement in governance and management of the water and sanitation sector in Beninese municipalities. 

This is through the signing this Thursday, August 19, 2021 at the headquarters of the ANCB, a memorandum of understanding between the two structures. Started since 2019, the MuniWASH project is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by TETRA TECH in collaboration with the African Water and Sanitation Association (AfWASA), in 16 municipalities including 8 in Benin and 8 in Côte d'Ivoire for a period of 5 years. This project aims to support city governments, national directorates and agencies, utilities, and service providers in Benin and Côte d’Ivoire to sustain and expand city-wide water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services to fill critical needs that reach poor and underserved community members in priority municipalities.

Specifically, the memorandum provides for technical capacity building activities for ANCB but also for the beneficiary municipalities of Abomey-Calavi, Allada, Aplahoué, Avrankou, Cotonou, Bohicon, So Ava and Ouidah, on issues related to the management of water and sanitation services, municipal governance, gender and social inclusion promotion, civil society engagement, and improved advocacy said Safaa FAKOREDE, MuniWASH Chief Of Party 

Continuing his speech, Mr. FAKOREDE recalled the four key components of the project which are: improving financial viability and sustainability, improving technical and operational competence, improving governance and municipal management, strengthening learning and knowledge sharing. According to him, in view of its status as a key interlocutor in the relations between communes and decentralization and development actors, the ANCB has played a decisive and central role in providing access to the mayors of beneficiary communes and their strong involvement in the implementation of project activities since the beginning of the project. Thus, "the signing of the memorandum of understanding formalizes the collaboration already well underway between our two institutions for a more sustainable synergy of action" he added. He then praised the exceptional leadership of the ANCB and its president, Mayor Luc Sètondji ATROKPO for his constant support to the implementation of the project. 

Speaking after the signing of the memorandum, the president of the ANCB expressed his gratitude to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and through it, to all the American people for its unwavering support to MuniWASH project. "MuniWASH project has common objectives with the ANCB in the supply of drinking water, sanitation, hygiene in urban areas in our country," said Luc Sètondji ATROKPO before reassuring the project stakeholders of the availability of the umbrella organization of Beninese municipalities to play its part fully through the respect of its commitments.
Source : ANCB

Dear MuniWASH Team,

It is commendable that MuniWASH is providing support to city governments in West Africa aimed at improving and expanding water and sanitation services to meet critical needs. Similar to other developing countries on the African continent, increased urbanization in West Africa is challenging the ability of municipalities to deliver consistent and quality water and sanitation services as well as make improvements towards the achievement of water and sanitation-focused Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Advancing urban WASH service delivery in any urban setting requires institutional strengthening, planning, data, evidence-based decision-making, and financing at national, regional, and municipal levels. I Love the fact that MuniWASH relies on the experience of umbrella organizations to develop a culture of exchange and promote sharing of good practices in the management and extension of water and sanitation services.

Best regards, 
Chaiwe 

Illustration - Meeting MuniWASH andUVICOCI
The Municipal Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (MuniWASH) project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Tetra Tech in Benin and in Côte d'Ivoire in collaboration with the African Water Association (AfWA) is supporting the Association Nationale des Communes du Bénin (ANCB) and the Union des Villes et Communes de Côte d'Ivoire  (UVICOCI) to create and organize communities of practice focused on the management of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) for local municipalities.

The proposed communities of practice will bring together mayors and those in charge of technical or operational services in the municipalities to share knowledge and build on successful methods of managing water and sanitation services. ANCB in Benin and UVICOCI in Côte d'Ivoire represent all municipalities in each country, which makes them ideal partners to identify needs and support collaboration between municipalities and the project. MuniWASH relies on the experience of these umbrella organizations to develop a culture of exchange and promote sharing of good practices in management and extension of water and sanitation services.

The primary vision of the community of practice is to share between municipalities good practices in  water and sanitation services delivery.  The deconcentrated services in charge of water and sanitation management at the local level will participate to community of practice meetings according to themes requiring their expertise and intervention. Also, MuniWASH will provide the community of practice with a pool of experts to share their knowledge for the benefit of members of the municipal community of practice according to the targeted themes.

Implemented in 16 municipalities in Benin and Côte d'Ivoire (eight in each country), the MuniWASH project started in September 2019 and aims to facilitate coordination between public and      private actors and target municipalities to improve urban populations' access to better water and sanitation services by targeting poor and underserved populations in particular. The project is contributing to improving urban WASH service delivery by facilitating private investment, technical and operational capacity building, good governance, and learning and knowledge sharing.

UVICOCI, through its Secretary General Mrs. Harlette N'Guessan, welcomed the establishment of this community of practice stating: "it is a good initiative that will allow municipalities to be in permanent contact but also to learn from each other."In Benin, Mr. Sègla Lihoussou, Executive Director of ANCB, and Ms. Alladatin Emenique, ANCB Technical Assistant for WASH, supported the initiative and encouraged the MuniWASH team to do everything possible to ensure that this community of practice engages municipalities for continued collaboration. Mr. Lihoussou requested that MuniWASH "develop attractive themes [to keep the communes ]  interested in this community of practice.” These could include good practices in strategic planning and resource mobilization for financing the water and sanitation sector by municipalities, technological innovations in tools and equipment for municipal management of water and sanitation services, and successful models for strengthening the regulatory framework for the WASH sector.

To be useful to participants, the communities of practice must understand needs and communicate information effectively. MuniWASH breaks this work down into several phases: identification, documentation, dissemination and sharing to leverage experiences for learning. During its implementation, MuniWASH is producing learning notes developed from the experiences of the project, which are being disseminated through digital platforms and during WASH events to different audiences of professionals and public actors. MuniWASH is also working with ANCB and UVICOCI communities of practice members’ to promote bilateral experience sharing and to use their website to publish its learning notes on a virtual library. During its implementation MuniWASH will develop 90 learning notes that will be disseminated through electronic channels such as the African Water Association's knowledge sharing platform. MuniWASH will use the opportunities of the quarterly AfWA meetings to share the learning and knowledge of the project with all participants in order to increase the opportunities of dissemination of the learning products that will be produced. 

By Safaa FAKOREDE
MuniWASH project COP

The documents are 3 learning notes, 2 of which shed light on the role of municipalities in Benin and Côte d'Ivoire in the management of and access to water and sanitation services.
These documents also highlight the lessons learned from the analysis of the institutional and regulatory framework of the water and sanitation sector in the above mentioned countries.
The third document is a learning note on the lessons learned from the methodological approach used by the MuniWASH project to select target municipalities in Benin and Côte d'Ivoire. 
Find the pdf files below or follow this links 
www.pseau.org/outils/biblio/resume.php?d=9318&l=fr
www.pseau.org/outils/biblio/resume.php?d=9317&l=fr
www.pseau.org/outils/biblio/resume.php?d=9318&l=fr

Hello Chaiwe
Thank you for your interest in the MuniWASH project, especially in its knowledge sharing component. 
As announced in our publication on SUSANA, MuniWASH is a project for municipalities in West Africa. However, considering the West African part (about 16 countries), MuniWASH has started its intervention in 2 countries (Cote d'Ivoire and Benin). In each of these countries, the project will intervene in 08 municipalities making a total of 16 municipalities of intervention. 
It is here that knowledge sharing in the project takes its full meaning. The project will document, capitalize and share MuniWASH's good practices with a view to replication in other communes in the region. This knowledge sharing will be done in partnership with the African Water Association (AfWA) which is a network of actors in the water and sanitation sector in Africa. AfWA has a knowledge sharing platform that MuniWASH will contribute to. 
Knowledge sharing activities will include the organization of national and regional events, the development of learning products, coaching and mentoring, etc. In line with the developed communication strategy, MuniWASH will publish for the benefit of the WASH sector on major knowledge platforms around the world. In this way we want to inform and solicit peer contributions on the implementation of the project. MuniWASH thanks you for this contribution. 
Thank you 

Mamadou Ouattara 
Knowledge Sharing and Learning Adviser
MuniWASH project

Bonjour Abdouaziz, nous vous remercions pour l'intérêt que vous portez au projet MuniWASH. Pour la durée actuelle du financement, le projet s'exécute en Afrique de l'Ouest et précisément au Bénin et en Côte d'Ivoire avec un accès sur les besoins en eau et en assainissement liquide (FSM). Nous notons à juste titre les besoins que vous exprimez et nous ne manquerons pas à l'occasion de porter cette requête au niveau de notre client. Cordialement

Safaa FAKORERE
Directeur Régional du projet MuniWASH

===========================

Hello Abdouaziz, thank you for your interest in the MuniWASH project. For the current funding period, the project is being implemented in West Africa and specifically in Benin and Côte d'Ivoire with access to water and liquid sanitation (WSF) needs. We rightly note the needs that you express and we will not fail on occasion to bring this request to the level of our client.
Best
Safaa FAKORERE
Chief Of Party
MuniWASH Project

Très belle initiative !
Invite aux partenaires financiers et techniques du secteur WASH à s'intéresser également au Cameroun où  avec notre organisation  "SOLDIS" nous initions et souhaiterions collaborer avec des investisseurs potentiels sur des projets semblables à "MuniWASH" et même la transformation des déchets dans les  municipalités en zones urbaines et péri-urbaines.
Contact: Abdou Aziz LINJOUOM (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Translation added by moderator via DeepL Translate

Very nice initiative!
Invites financial and technical partners in the WASH sector to also take an interest in Cameroon where with our organisation "SOLDIS" we are initiating and would like to collaborate with potential investors on projects similar to "MuniWASH" and even the transformation of waste in municipalities in urban and peri-urban areas.
Contact: Abdou Aziz LINJOUOM (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Figure1- MuniWASH-Mairie de Cotonou Meeting

It's official, eight municipalities in Benin are finalists for the  USAID-funded West Africa Municipal Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene MuniWASH Activity.  This announcement is a result of a  selection process involving the Ministry of Decentralization and Local Governance, the Ministry of Water and Mines, the Benin National Water Company, and the Beninese Association for Social Marketing and Communication for Health, among others. The selected  municipalities are  Abomey-Calavi, Allada, Aplahoué, Avrankou, Bohicon, Cotonou, Ouidah, and Sô-Ava. Some are target areas of the Sanitation Services Delivery (SSD), an activity also funded by USAID for the years 2014-2021, and will complement MuniWASH activities.

The MuniWASH activity, is a five-year regional project funded by USAID and implemented by Tetra Tech, Inc. in Benin and Côte d'Ivoire. USAID's objective through this project is to assist municipal governments, national departments and agencies, and service providers to maintain and expand water, sanitation, and hygiene services to meet the basic needs of underserved populations and disadvantaged segments of the population living in urban and peri-urban areas.

In September 2020, the MuniWASH team met with each municipality’s council, which provided an opportunity to present the project to the different actors involved. These included mayors, city councillors, technical officials of the municipal administration, decentralized state services as well as private sector operators operating at the municipal level. In the community  of Aplahoué, for example, the Société Nationale des Eaux (SONEB) took part in the meeting.

During exchanges, it emerged that the communities were very willing to commit themselves to MuniWASH. "This project is welcomed, we are ready to sign with MuniWASH," said Ahouandjinou Randyx, First Deputy Mayor of Cotonou, the economic capital of Benin. Access to drinking water services remains a challenge in Benin, although there has been a significant improvement over the last decade. According to the 2018 Demographic Health Survey (EDS5), the use of drinking water from an improved source in Benin increased from 67 percent in 2001 to 71 percent in 2017-2018. This growing increase in the rate of access to water in urban areas is now 62% according to SONEB's 2019 report.

However, according to the Mayor of Avrankou, Mr. Ganhoutode Sèna Gabriel, additional efforts still need to be made: "the problem of drinking water is acute. Our peri-urban areas suffer greatly from the lack of access to drinking water. Our desire is to see MuniWASH carry out concrete actions that have a direct impact on the populations by allowing them to have better access to water and sanitation," he said.

For their part, the municipal council members of each of the eight municipalities met in deliberation sessions and gave their approval to authorize the Mayor to sign the Memorandum of Understanding between MuniWASH and the Municipality for the implementation of the program. 

MuniWASH is focused on the reinforcement of operational, financial, and technical capacities of municipalities for better governance of the water and sanitation sector at the municipal level. “The capacity building component will help city hall executives to improve their performance,” continued Mr. Gabriel. 

In addition, the project aims to improve the financial sustainability and private sector investment in WASH access and service providers and the operational reliability of public services and WASH service providers. As Mr. Gabriel explains, many participants welcomed the fact that “MuniWASH will work to mobilize resources for infrastructure financing to improve the conditions of poor and underserved households.” Ultimately, the successful experiences and lessons learned from the implementation of these activities will be shared and good practices disseminated at national and regional levels, primarily through channels hosted by the African Water Association. This will allow municipalities that were not selected for the program to benefit from the knowledge gained in MuniWASH’s implementation.

Safaa FAKOREDE
COP MuniWASH Project

Dear MuniWASH Team,

Great project! and a good way to help both municipalities and the beneficiaries.

 I Just wanted to quote your response to Elisabeth's questions here:

One of the four components of the MuniWASH project is to strengthen learning and knowledge sharing at the regional level in order to replicate successful approaches. 

I find this especially important as it is a working approach for the sector within the African continent. Here is what countries in the south have done in the past with respect to knowledge sharing: 
1. Discussion on KEx. forum.susana.org/194-cities-planning-imp...lusaka-dar-es-salaam
2. Publication: www.susana.org/en/knowledge-hub/resource...library/details/3826

In the same vain, i looked up some projects that mirror your approach:

Taking the approach of targeting the municipalities, other than just the residents is a great move, as it deals with problems from the service providers through to the receivers of the service. There is a similar project in Somalia called the SURP II (Somalia Urban Resilience project II) which is being funded by the World Bank and was launched in 2019, December. The project aims to strengthen public service delivery capacity of local governments and increase access to urban infrastructure and services in selected areas. Link

Similar to MuniWASH project, The SURP was designed as an urban resilience project that aimed to deliver prioritized infrastructure and services in cities, use country Public Financial Management systems at the sub-national level and strengthen municipal government capacity and the path taken in strengthening urban resilience by SURP is by providing capacity-building support to municipalities and strengthening government systems at the sub-national level by channeling funds on-budget, financing prioritized urban infrastructure investments in cities, generating short-term income generation opportunities for the vulnerable such as women, urban poor, IDPs and returnees and strengthening institutions for urban development
at the municipal level. Link

In Cameroon SNV  is training councils and water service providers to improve the operation and maintenance of water services. To date, over 200,000 people benefit from the improved operation and maintenance of existing water systems with water loss reduced by 35% allowing water fee decrease by 15%. SNV in Cameroon supervises the sensitisation on good hygiene practices and acceptable sanitation facilities with a particular focus on accountability and social inclusion of women and minority groups. Link

Kind Regards,
Chaiwe

Hi Dr. Elisabeth von Muench. Thank you for your interest to USAID/MuniWASH project. The teams has gave a feedback to yours questions. Please find them below.

Dr.Elisabeth von Muench /// It's great to see that you have chosen the SuSanADiscussion Forum as a place where you can post regular updates about your large 5-year project. It will be really interesting to follow your progress over the years, so please do keep making these posts! I have just two small questions: Do you know why Benin and Cote d'Ivoire were chosen in particular? Why these two countries exactly?
 
During the design of the MuniWASH project, USAID carried out consultations with countries in the West Africa region. Benin and Côte d'Ivoire showed great interest in the implementation of this project. In addition, USAID is also funding a sanitation project, called the Sanitation Services Delivery (SSD) in Benin and Côte d'Ivoire, whose activities are closely linked to the MuniWASH project. MuniWASH can build on the successes of SSD to improve access to water and sanitation. Although the initial geographic focus for MuniWASH is Benin and Cote d’Ivoire, the project is identifying opportunities to provide similar technical assistance to other African countries. 

Dr. Elisabeth von Muench /// Theselection of the ten pre-qualified municipalities from a total of 200 municipalities was a transparent and participatory process. Could you explain to us what this process involved andwhat the selection criteria were?
 
Thestakeholders involved in the implementation of the project (namely, public and technical ministries, national government agencies, water supply company,  professional organizations of municipalities) refined and jointly agreed upon a set of 14 criteria. MuniWASH completed an initial evaluation that resulted in the pre-selection of 21 municipalities, including ten in Côte d'Ivoire and 11  in Benin. Following this, the MuniWASH team quantitatively evaluated the shortlisted municipalities by understanding their water and sanitation service provision needs. MuniWASH developed and implemented an automated scoring tool to provide a ranking of municipalities once the criteria data was entered into the tool. The final municipal selection was made using a scorecard approach, which facilitated the scoring of pre-selected municipalities to select the most appropriate candidate municipalities.
 
Dr.Elisabeth von Muench ///  It must have been disappointing for the other 190municipalities who didn't get chosen. Can they still get any benefits from the project or do they miss out completely?
 
Oneof the four components of the MuniWASH project is to strengthen learning and knowledge sharing at the regional level in order to replicate successful approaches. This important task of disseminating knowledge products from the implementation
of MuniWASH project activities is being carried out in close collaboration with the African Water Association (AfWA), a pan-African capacity building organization. Many water and sanitation utilities across Africa are members of AfWA. MuniWASH will collaborate with AfWA as a learning partner to draw lessons from project implementation and help guide urban WASH programs. Learning
materials developed through the project will be available these municipalities through AfWA to draw on the good practices developed by MuniWASH and other municipalities may be invited to these experience-sharing meetings.
 
 
Dr.Elisabeth von Muench ///  Were only those municipalities selected that had thebest running local governments and mayors?
 
Theperformance of local governments was not the most critical selection criterion for target municipalities. There was a series of 14 criteria that are : 

          1.Poor access to drinking water
          2.Poor access to basic sanitation
          3.Large proportion of the population belonging to the bottom wealth quintiles
          4.Mortality rate
          5.Alignment with investment plans of utilities and service providers
          6.Qualified staff in place to supervise WASH services
          7.Presence of faecal sludge management service providers
          8.Existing budget allocated to the WASH sector
          9.Geographical proximity
        10.Synergy with USAID to take advantage of the completion of the Sanitation Service Delivery project or other projects
        11.Synergies with technical and financial partners
        12.Expected increase in population
        13.Population size
        14.Speed to collect and transmit survey data to MuniWASH

MuniWASHassigned a weighting to each criteria, which made it possible to calculate  scores and rank the different municipalities. The whole process was developed in full transparency with all the players and stakeholders.
 
Dr.Elisabeth von Muench ///  And is this the website of Tetra Tech, the privatecompany that is implementing this project?:   www.tetratech.com/
 Yes, it is.