Background paper: Sustainable sanitation and hygiene delivery in West Africa

It is the purpose of this paper to stimulate some of the debate at the symposium. Its aim is to raise some of the issues across the range of topics which need to be confronted in the sanitation and hygiene sector in West Africa. It cannot be fully comprehensive, this is not the objective – but it is the aim to raise questions throughout that may form part of a list of issues for participants at the symposium to consider. So, in each section, one or some key questions are posed for that purpose. The relevant text can, therefore, be seen in each case as the context for generating inputs to the symposium.

This paper discusses the various definitions of sanitation by different insititutions and countries. It also reiterates the importance of sanitation and hygiene delivery. There is a major section on the overview of sanitation in West Africa which highlighted several issues including institutional arrangement, technologies and approaches in sanitation and hygiene delivery, challenges in the sanitation sector and cost-effectiveness analysis using Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) implications. Several issues are also elaborated in the section on the way forward. The paper concludes with some key issues such as disparity in definitions, sanitation planning and financing sanitation which need to be critically looked at by all stakeholders.

[Paper prepared for the West Africa Regional Sanitation and Hygiene Symposium, 3-5 Nov 2009, Accra, Ghana]