Session A: Opening ceremony and introduction to the sanitation issue in West Africa

"I have a good knowledge of the conference venue and I stand ready to conduct and answer any question regarding Burkina Faso, in general and specifically Ouagadougou city.

For having worked on sanitation events with CREPA for several years, I ensure the timing of the opening ceremony and Gala Dinner, where I could present the Burkinabe and foreign authorities. Be sure that I am a good time-manager for such events".

The first part of the morning was marked by the speeches for opening the ceremony by the General manager of the CREPA, Mr. Tidiane Tandia, the General Coordinator of NETSSAF, Mr. Mirko Hänel and the Representative of the Minister for Hydraulics and Agriculture of Burkina Faso. The Representative of the Ministry for hydraulics and Agriculture stressed the importance of NETSSAF project for West Africa , region which faced several problems and constraints to achieve the Millenium Development Goals . Therefore, NETSSAF Project is welcomed to help urban and rural populations to take the way of the sustainable development through sustainable sanitation which is expressed by a safe hygiene , a sure environment and a greater productivity of agriculture.

Following the opening ceremony, Prof. Ralf Otterpohl, scientific coordinator of NETSSAF project presents the main points of the coordination of the project. According to Prof. Otterpöhl, the sustainable sanitation Approach aims to protect human health and the environment while reducing the use of water in sanitation system and –when possible- recycling nutrients to help reduce the need for artificial fertilizers in agriculture, and can be only successfully applied under consideration of the actual technical, economic, social and institutional framework. The general objective of NETSSSAF is therefore to coordinate and integrate the current scientific research, technological innovation and execution activities, creating synergies to support large-scale implementation of sustainable sanitation systems in peri-urban and rural areas, in order to propose feasible solutions for the achievement of the Millenium Development Goals in Africa. Indeed, NETSSAF aims at giving value to the sanitation through: (i) improvement of the public health; (ii) production of the fertilizers (increase in the productivity); (iii) improvement of the quality of the soils;(iv) jobs opportunities in the sanitation (implementation and maintenance).

The objectives of the project were achieved. Four significant tools were elaborate:

• Sustainable sanitation Platform of knowledge and communication in English and French under www.netssaf.net;
• West african data base of sanitation supply, containing the existent regional suppliers of the technological requierements for the implementation of the technology component of the suitable sanitation systems by country;
• West African data database of potential technology transfer associations and groups;
• Adapted sustainable sanitation Management System, which will support decision makers and beneficiaries in identifying feasible sanitation alternatives for large-scale implementation by using low-cost technologies adapted to different physical and socio-economic conditions prevailing in West Africa.

Andrea Knupp, from Water and Sanitation Program in Africa WSP-AF of World Bank, based in Ethiopia underlined the AfricaSan 2008 Objectives which are defined as follow: Assess the status of H&S in Africa, Review lessons learned and identify strategic areas for improvement,Raise the profile of H&S in national and regional policies,Generate an AfricaSan action Plan to accelerate sustainable access to H&S. According to Andreas, the main outputs are: 600+ delegates, including 30+ African ministers, eThikwini Declaration: African governments commit to separate budget lines and to spend >0.5 of GDP on H&S, Action Plan to finance and track progress towards MDGs, Regional sanitation advocacy campaign launched, Sanitation review of 32 countries.

Finally M. Andreas defined the five recommendations from Africa san as follow:

• Sustainability has to be planned from the beginning, for the long-term, and thought about at the macro level and from a systems perspective (including sludge management, disposal/reuse)
• Rural areas reuse systems are ready for scale up but urban systems need further research and have to demonstrate that they are replicable at scale;
• Sanitation needs to be linked with other sectors such as livelihoods, climate change and food security especially in light of nutrient depletion;
• Need to link integrated resource planning and sanitation sector and take into consideration closed looped systems;
• Encourage knowledge sharing of replicable ecological interventions between countries.

Prof. Gueladio Cissé, Director of Swiss Centre for Scientific Research in Côte d’Ivoire, presented The programme NCCR North-South which is among 20 Swiss National Centres of Competence in Research (NCCR) – 2001. - NCCR North South is funded by :

• Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)
• Since its launching it has created worldwide research network including some 160 universities, research Institutes and development organisations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe; approximately 350 researchers worldwide .

The NCCR North-South attempts to build bridges between:

• Scientific institutions North and South,
• Natural and social science disciplines,
• Science and stakeholders in institutions and society,
• Problems of global change and local syndrome manifestations,
• Development needs expressed by stakeholders, as well as requirements from a sustainability perspective,
• Scientific outputs and practical implementation.

Prof. Cissé wished for the future to :

• Reinforce NCCR dynamics links with other Networks as NETSSAF
• Create Research Groups accross countries of the same JACS, and between 2 or more JACS for consistent projects having a potential of real and sustainable impacts at local levels. 

The last speaker for the session A was Dr Günter Langergraber from University of BOKU, Austria on the approach of ROSA project toward a sustainable sanitation. The ROSA project carried out the following objectives:

• To promote resource-oriented sanitation concepts as a route to sustainable sanitation and to fulfil the UN MDGs,
• To implement resource-oriented sanitation concepts in four model cities in East Africa (Arba Minch, Ethiopia; Nakuru, Kenya; Arusha, Tanzania; and Kitgum, Uganda),
• To research the gaps for the implementation of resource-oriented sanitation concepts in peri-urban areas, and
• To develop a generally applicable adaptable framework for the development of Strategic Sanitation and Waste Plans (SSWPs).

Dr Günter, gave a Summary and an outlook of ROSA as follow:

• Municipalities as consortium partners as an important towards success of ROSA;
• Capacity building;
• Focussed on applied research for implementation of resource-oriented sanitation concepts in peri-urban areas:
• main research topic: implementation study of the updated WHO-guidelines for use of waste and excreta in agriculture
• detailed other research defined by the local partners
• Currently implementation is going on in all cities and operation and management strategies are being developed;
• Development of a framework (SSWPs) based on the experiences.

Presentation of the NETSSAF coordination action

Prof. Ralf Otterpohl

Technical University Hamburg Harburg, Germany

Sustainable development and the MDGs on sanitation: the AfricanSan + 5 recommendations

Mr. Andreas Knapp

World Bank, Water and Sanitation Program Africa, Ethiopia

NCCR-N: a north-south partnership for action in the field of health and environmental science

Prof. Gueladio Cissé

Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques (CSRS), Cote d'Ivore

The ROSA project approach toward sustainable sanitation

Dr. Günther Langergraber

BOKU University, Australia