Country and Sector Background
Sector Issues and Development Challenges. Senegal's water and sanitation sector is one of the most developed in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as the country made decisive steps to reach the sectoral MDGs. Still, the sector faces three main challenges: (i) disparities in access and use of services between urban and rural areas and between water and sanitation; (ii) the need to improve the sustainability of rural water services; and (iii) the need to consolidate reforms and the financial viability of the sector.
Uneven access to and use of water impact the poorest users both in terms of quality and cost of services. Even though global access rates are high by SSA standards (98 percent in urban areas and 75.5 percent in rural areas), the supply modes (private connections vs. standpipes or piped water vs. wells) show significant variations throughout the country. In urban areas, there is a wide gap in the connection rate between the Dakar region (82.2 percent in 2008) and other urban centers (68.6 percent). The poorest quintile of urban and peri-urban households, who are mostly supplied through standpipes, pay for their water three to five times as much as the connected users benefiting from the so-called social tranche and reduce accordingly their consumption.
Similarly, access to rural piped water systems, which warrants better water quality than open wells and allows the possibility of household connections varies greatly among the rural areas, from 22.7 percent in the Kolda region to 73 percent in the Fatick region (national average: 57 percent). Users of water point sources (wells and boreholes equipped with handpumps) consume on average less than 10 liters per capita per day (lpcd), whereas users of standpipes consume 20 lpcd and connected users 30 lpcd.
Disparities are even more sensible in the access to adequate sanitation, which lags way behind water access. Global access rates are estimated to 63.4 percent in urban areas and only 27.5 percent in rural areas, where one third of the population lacks any excreta disposal facilities. The metropolitan area of Dakar regroups 86 percent of the total sewerage connections and recently benefited from a large-scale on-site sanitation program in peri-urban areas (PAQPUD), which offered suitable and affordable solutions and met a huge demand for adequate wastewater disposal. Sewerage is embryonic a few other urban centers (5 percent connection rate), while households rely on latrines, which often do not meet acceptable sanitary standards. In addition, the financial viability of the urban sanitation sector has not been achieved to date and remains a long-term objective.
In rural areas, the main constraints to development of the sanitation sector are the following: (i) the lack of financial resources for delivering public sanitation programs; (ii) the high cost of sanitation facilities compared to rural communities' income; (iii) the quality and availability of the construction services offered by the private sector are poor and do not meet minimum norms and standards.
The momentum of sectoral reforms should be maintained to ensure the viability and sustainability of services.
