The EVENT

The 9th edition of the World Water Forum will be held in Dakar on March 22 – 26, 2022, with a new approach to focus on action for water. The event aims to ultimately create coherence with SDGs and directly contribute to the 2030 agenda. This edition of the forum will focus on four core priorities to enable a cross-cutting exchange between all stakeholders. Each Priority is composed of 5 to 6 actions which represent the objectives that the Forum will strive to accomplish. These actions will deliver concrete responses to a broad set of water-related SDG targets.

Problem to be addressed in Senegal

Senegal has been experiencing rapid urbanization for the past few decades. At present, 45% of the country’s 15.3 million citizens live in urban areas. The urban population is expected to grow a 2.5% per year, reaching 62% of the total population by 2025.
Much of Senegal’s current urban growth is not accompanied by basic services, such as sanitation and domestic wastewater management

Access to sanitation is a key development goal, yet the MDG for sanitation was not reached. Sanitation is critical for achieving 13 out of the 16 SDGs, which can improve health, well-being and economic productivity. Inadequate sanitation impacts individuals, households, communities and countries. Despite its importance, achieving real gains in sanitation coverage has been slow, and lags particularly with respect to water supply. Scaling up and increasing the effectiveness of investments in sanitation need to be accelerated to meet the ambitious SDG targets by 2030.

Sanitation services are also greatly affected by climate change as there is increasing variability in the water cycle, extreme weather events and decreasing water quality.[1] Water resource quality is strongly linked to sanitation with over 1.8 billion people currently consuming fecal contaminated water.

The project

With the need to address issues related to the limited bankability of sustainable, inclusive sanitation services and inadequate policy and regulatory environment to facilitate as well as considering potential for GHG emission reduction and resilience to climate change for populations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) developed a two year project with GGGI to develop and implement a range of solutions

The approach looks at the sanitation challenges in a wholistic manner addressing potential gaps in policy to make sanitation more attractive to climate financing; incorporating sanitation in national climate change policies, addressing potential fiscal incentives or other key elements that affect sanitation businesses in addition to incorporating sanitation into an inclusive planning approaches. The project also develops innovative and financially sustainable delivery models that in the medium term could be scaled up in Nepal and Senegal.

Initiative Dakar 2021

The organizing committee has put in place the the initiative Dakar 2021 as a key consultation process entity that works on collecting and showcasing projects with economic impacts and improving  the lives of the population. In the line with the forum’s priorities, Dakar 2021 is linked to the achievement of the SDGs, especially SDG 6. Citywide sanitation, through climate resilience and green growth, will benefit the city’s international exposure, partnerships, and possibly funding from partners institutions for the 2022 edition. Learn more information about selected projects