Water supply and sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Although access to water supply and sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa has been steadily improving over the past two decades, the region still lags behind all other developing regions. Access to improved water supply has increased from 49% in 1990 to 60% in 2008, while access to improved sanitation has only risen from 28% to 31%. Sub-Saharan Africa is unlikely to meet the Millennium Development Goals of halving the share of the population without access to safe drinking water and sanitation between 1990 and 2015. There are, however, large disparities among Sub-Saharan countries, and between the urban and rural areas.

Usually, water is provided by utilities in urban areas and municipalities or community groups in rural areas. Sewerage is not common and wastewater treatment is even less common. Sanitation is often in the form of individual pit latrines or shared toilets. 70% of investments in water supply and sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa are financed internally and only 30% is financed externally (2001-2005 average). Most of the internal financing is household self-finance ($2.1bn), which is primarily for on-site sanitation such as latrines. Public sector financing ($1.2bn) is almost as high as external financing (US$1.4bn). The contribution of private commercial financing has been negligible at $10 million only.

In Sub-Saharan Africa access to water supply and sanitation has improved, but the region lags behind all other developing regions: access to safe drinking water has increased from 49% in 1990 to 60% in 2008, while in the same time span the access to improved sanitation has only risen from 28% to 31%. Sub-Saharan Africa is unlikely to meet the Millennium Development Goals of halving the share of the population without access to safe drinking water and sanitation between 1990 and 2015. These trends in water supply and sanitation are directly reflected in health: the under-five child mortality is decreasing worldwide, but Sub-Saharan Africa shows the slowest pace of progress.

There are large disparities amongst countries in the Sub-Saharan region. Access to safe drinking water varies from 38% in Ethiopia to 91% in South Africa, while the access to improved sanitation fluctuates from 11% in Burkina Faso to 77% in South Africa. The situation in Ivory Coast is significantly better, with the access to improved drinking water source at 82%

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