Our story in Africa began in 2006 when we participated in a European cooperation project, developing sustainable approaches to large-scale implementation of sanitation in rural and peri-urban areas in Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Mauritania, and Côte d’Ivoire. After collaborating with GIZ on a water resources management project in Morocco, we embarked on a programme to support entrepreneurs in water, sanitation and waste recovery in Zambia, South Africa, Namibia, and Uganda.

Today we work in several areas, such as integrity management and governance, business incubation and acceleration, sanitation safety planning, sanitation market approaches, among others.

Some of our initiatives in Africa are:

• In collaboration with the Kenya Water Sector Trust Fund (WSTF), we developed a tool to assess the governance and performance of Water and Sanitation Service Providers. This tool allows the WSTF and other donors in Kenya to assess the risk of funding for infrastructure projects.

• In the framework of the develoPPP.de project of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)  and GIZ, we implemented a programme to support water and sanitation entrepreneurs in South Africa, Namibia, and Zambia.

• In support of ANEW (African Civil Association Network on Water and Sanitation) and the Watershed partnership between the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, IRC, Simavi, Akvo and Wetlands International, we carried out a study of the role of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in achieving the SDGs in ten African countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda, and Zambia). We also prepared recommendations to unify CSOs in a consolidated agenda and to establish synergies with authorities.

• In the framework of the USAID Resilience Waters programme, we support our partners Chemonics and JG Afrika in the implementation of a programme for the management of faecal sludge from on-site sanitation systems in the city of Polokwane in South Africa. Our main role is to train the authorities in the development and implementation of Sanitation Safety Planning.