The Ziguinchor faecal sludge management and recovery improvement project (PAGBZ), carried out from 2013 to 2019, promoted access to secure sanitation services for the populations of disadvantaged neighborhoods in this main urban center located in the south-west of Senegal, 455 km from Dakar.
Before this project, Ziguinchor experienced sanitation problems with a low rate of access to toilets (45%), the absence of an appropriate collection service for sludge from existing septic tanks, pushing the discharge of such waste into the environment. without treatment. Thus, soils, surface water and groundwater, were exposed to this pollution, with negative repercussions on the health and well-being of the populations of the city. In 2011, around 25% of consultation cases resulted from diarrheal illnesses.
“Thanks to the project, access to toilets is improved in the targeted disadvantaged neighborhoods. Household toilet pit sludge service providers have seen their capacity strengthened in management, equipment operation and social marketing. Likewise, the city has a faecal sludge treatment and recovery station. The said station will be put into operation upon completion of the wastewater treatment plant, also financed by the Bank as part of another operation, ”notes Ms. Wambui Gichuri, Director of the Water and Sanitation Department of the African Bank. of development.
The project, funded to the tune of US $ 1.7 million by the Bank, notably concerned the populations of the poorest neighborhoods of Ziguinchor (around 30,000 in 2017) with the toilet procurement mechanism put in place.
The project has enabled the construction of 820 family toilets in the districts of Colobane, Cobiyène, Soucoupapaye, Codoba, Djirighor, Lyndiane, Boucotte-sud, Diabir and Kénia. With regard to the management of sludge from toilet pits, raising public awareness has encouraged the abandonment of the practice of manual emptying and the dumping of the contents of said pits in the immediate environment of the habitats and in the drainage channels of the rainy waters. The practice of mechanical emptying has thus been popularized and more professionalized.
The daily capacity of 120m3 faecal sludge treatment plant has been completed and should be commissioned following construction of the wastewater treatment plant, which is currently being finalized. This station also includes a unit for the production of compost from treated faecal sludge with a daily capacity of 1.2 t. This compost is intended to be marketed as a fertilizer in urban agriculture, which is highly developed in Ziguinchor. The additional financial resources that will be generated will help meet the station's operating costs.
"The investments made have made it possible to generate jobs for the construction and maintenance of toilets and to improve the service delivery of sludge emptying companies", welcomes Seydou Sané, deputy mayor of the beneficiary city of the project.
According to him, “these works carried out and the improved capacities of service providers contribute to further preserve environmental and human health, thus reducing expenditure for health and inter-municipal disputes resulting from the dumping of raw sludge in the neighboring municipalities of Ziguinchor which had no suitable natural site ”.
The representatives of the neighborhoods benefiting from the project admitted that the PAGBZ was concrete, especially since it responded to a real social demand. “The project enabled households to access affordable and environmentally friendly toilets. It contributes to putting an end to the practice of manual emptying of pits and the dumping of emptied sludge in the immediate environment without prior treatment ”, greeted the district delegates.
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