At a workshop in December 2020, participants contributed to Banfora district's next five-year action plan.
Published on: 18/01/2021
ECG, CRS, ONEA, WaterAid, IRC, Banfora municipality, DREA, they were all working hard for the success of this activity (Ph NR. Zohoun)
Banfora district will soon have a roadmap, a five-year action plan 2021-2025, to achieve its mission for providing the population of Banfora with safe water and sustainable hygiene and sanitation services by 2030 with support from IRC. For this purpose, a workshop took place on 7 and 8 December 2020, which brought together various actors from the WASH sector. The workshop was held in Banfora and launched by the Director of Drinking Water, Sanitation and Public Hygiene of the district, Mariettou Ouattara, representing the mayor.
As part of the implementation of the communal strategic plan for public water and sanitation services by 2030, drawn up in 2017 with the support of IRC, the commune of Banfora is working to equip itself with the instruments required for efficient and transparent management. To this end, a roadmap for steering and strategic planning of its actions has been developed over the last three years. As for the three-year action plan 2018-2020, which is nearing completion, its operation has been based on activity programming and budgeted annual work plans, which indicate what the commune and its partners have committed to achieving each year.
This planning, which focused on specific activities and was short term, undoubtedly limited the scope of the actions of this strategic plan. In terms of ambitions, the municipality has planned to increase service levels during the different phases of its strategic plan to achieve, by 2030, at least 70% access to a safely managed drinking water service and 100% access to sanitation. Faced with this challenge, the municipality is now working on a five-year action plan. To this end, a data collection phase has been initiated to take stock of the achievements from 2018 to 2020 and to set out the issues and challenges for the provision of drinking water and sanitation services in the commune for the coming five years to guide the development of an action plan for 2021-2025. At the end of this inventory, a working meeting with all the key government and non-governmental actors in the WASH sector working in the municipality of Banfora, took place on 7 and 8 December 2020.
Participants were invited to make constructive proposals and guidelines for developing the action plan (Photo NR Zohoun)
During these 48 hours, a brief analysis of the implementation of the previous three-year plan was carried out, followed by numerous and judicious contributions, and relevant proposals for action which will serve as a basis for enriching the five-year action plan to be elaborated. It is already clear that major efforts are still needed to raise the level of access to drinking water, hygiene, and sanitation services. During the two-day workshop appropriate activities, costs of implementation and different stakeholders which need to be involved, were identified by the participants. Activities include the construction and rehabilitation of improved drinking water and sanitation infrastructures in households, schools, health centres and public spaces, support to Banfora to strengthen its institutional performance, public awareness raising to end open defecation and the construction of a faecal sludge treatment plant. All these inputs will enable the five-year action plan to be finalised.
More than just planning, this roadmap currently being developed, will force actors to examine the current strengths and weaknesses of the WASH sector in Banfora, to make projections for the future and to determine the strategies that will enable the vision of the communal strategic plan to become a reality. In addition, it will ensure the overall coherence of interventions in the sector, with all Banfora's partners aligned to Sustainable Development Goal 6.
On behalf of the mayor's office, Issouf Sakoulma, head of the Drinking Water and Sanitation Department, expressed his gratitude to all the actors present and especially to IRC for its technical and financial support. All should be geared towards the successful completion of the implementation process of the WASH communal strategic plan in Banfora. Having sustainable WASH services will improve the quality of life of the population, economically, socially and health-wise.
