Plans for Burkina Faso: 2006-2011

A strategy running from 2006 to 2011 sets out the plans and activities for WaterAid in Burkina Faso. During this time WaterAid will continue to focus on water, sanitation and hygiene education, working with local partners on community managed projects.

As with all poor countries, financing water and sanitation is a key issue. Currently loans and grants to the state from external donors account for 88.5% of the total investment in water and sanitation. But even this is 14 billion CFAF short of the 32 billion CFAF required to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), targets agreed by all governments to halve the proportion of people without access to water and sanitation between 1990 and 2015.

WaterAid will increase its advocacy work to lobby for greater investment in these essential services and to ensure that the money available is spent in the most appropriate ways.

Marie Edith Kinda from Seguedin village, Burkina Faso

Credit: WaterAid / Suzanne Porter

"Before we had to go to the toilet in the bushes. The pigs would always trample the dirt back into the village and our homes. When women had diarrhoea they couldn't get far from home and had to go to the toilet in front of everyone else. It was embarrassing. Having latrines has not only helped our health, it has restored our dignity and pride."

In Burkina Faso responsibility for water and sanitation services is being transferred from central government to local governments. While this is a positive change, as it means decision making and project work will be closer to the communities, it is being implemented very slowly and the local authorities currently don't have the expertise or the budgets to carry out the work expected of them.

WaterAid therefore has plans to work with 27 local governments to support them in their new roles and help to build their capacity. Together, with WaterAid's partners, they will work towards reaching the MDGs in each target area. WaterAid will specifically help to map the location and condition of water facilities in the areas, to ensure all future work reaches people in an equitable way.

This mapping work will also enable WaterAid to plan where it can rehabilitate broken water points and where new ones are needed, ensuring it reaches the most people in the most cost effective way.

WaterAid will also help develop the skills of its local partner organisations, so that they can help bring communities' voices to decision makers and service providers. Ensuring that the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable are prioritised in future work is vitally important. Currently women, the elderly and disabled are overlooked by decision making and this too needs to change.

A big part of this work will be raising people's awareness of the necessity for, and their rights to, water and sanitation, alongside demonstrating the importance of water and sanitation in achieving the overall MDG of poverty reduction and the targets on health and education. WaterAid plans to carry out awareness-raising work in collaboration with the water and sanitation NGO network and the journalists network.

This is particularly pertinent to hygiene and sanitation which are often overlooked compared to water. However, communities who understand that the lack of sanitation and hygiene fuels disease and have the necessary training and support readily build latrines themselves.

In addition to the 'credit for sanitation' scheme (where people are given a small loan to help them pay for the materials needed to build latrines) WaterAid and UNICEF will continue their successful sanitation and hygiene work in schools. Children are key advocates for good hygiene, quickly taking on board new lessons and changing habits that have been ingrained through years of practice in their parents.

Sanitation is a key focus in urban areas where rapid urbanisation is resulting in unplanned settlements without facilities. Sanitation is not being prioritised by decision makers and service providers currently offer inadequate technology choices which means that the poorest can't afford to buy latrines.

WaterAid hopes to develop its partnership with the state owned company ONEA, responsible for water and sanitation, to help tackle this vast problem, focusing on sanitation and hygiene issues. One specific aim is to persuade ONEA to include low cost latrines in its strategy rather than only allowing more expensive ventilated improved pit latrines, which the majority of poor people cannot afford.

WaterAid will also closely monitor the proposed privatisation of ONEA (of which the details are not yet known) to lobby for the needs of the country's poor people.

Finally, all future projects in Burkina Faso will look at the issue of water resource management. In a country with dramatically reducing rainfall levels, falling water tables and increasing water needs this is crucially important to ensure that there is adequate water for all, and that its use is managed in a sustainable way.