Learning from past mistakes: unsustainable investments in wastewater management
During the decade from 1970 significant investments in wastewa- ter management were made in several African countries, in partic- ular Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal. Schemes were financed by bilateral and multilateral donors, but despite political good-will few of these investments survived. Little attention was paid to the arrange- ments needed to sustain the effectiveness and sustainability of these investments. The following examples from Saly Portudal and Louga in Senegal and Daloa in Côte d’Ivoire illustrate how good intentions can turn into white elephants.
Senegal: The village of Saly Portudal experienced a tourist boom in the 1970s. This resulted in a significant increase in wastewa- ter production, justifying the construction of a sewage treatment plant. The chosen system was based on stabilization ponds, de- signed to treat a flow equivalent to 6 000 hotel guests. The proj- ect was funded by the World Bank in 1977 for a total cost of 270 million XOF (ca. US$0.54 million). In 1984 the State of Senegal, through the National Company of Sanitation (ONAS), financed the construction of a similar treatment facility in the city of Louga, with a capacity of 200 m3 a day for nearly 7 000 households. About 20 years later a review (Maiga et al, 2002) revealed the following: No dedicated institution was established to manage the facility in either of these two cities. The plant of Saly Portudal was man- aged by the ONAS office in Rufisque, located 205 km away, while that of Louga was run remotely by the ONAS office of Saint-Lou- is at 60 km.
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At each site, only one staff member, a guard without relevant technical qualification and virtually no supervision, was sup- posed to ensure the maintenance of the service. No monitoring of the quality of the treated water was carried out Many cases of non-functioning equipment were reported but there were no financial resources, staff or equipment dedicated to follow up.
Côte d’Ivoire: In 1994 the African Development Bank financed a sewage treatment plant in Daloa to treat wastewater from the regional hospital complex. A follow-up review in 2002 (Maiga et al, 2002) noted that the plant was no longer operational. It had been left to fall into disuse and vegetation had invaded and covered the ruins of its basins and dams.
(Source: Personal communication, Dr. S. Kenfack, CREPA and R. Bechtloff, UNEP, Maiga et al, 2002)
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ecosystems, e.g. wetlands, salt marsh, mangroves, could equal or surpass the current opportunity costs to individu- als and society, if for example land-owners change from an agricultural regime to restore wetlands. For this to succeed, requires sufficient economic incentive for the land-owners to participate, and if subsidized, sufficient societal benefit for tax-payers to fund it.
In an assessment of the restoration of the wetlands of the Mississippi alluvial valley, a valuation exercise was under- taken using existing market values. The total value of the wetlands was assessed at just US$70 a hectare – signifi- cantly lower than the anticipated opportunity costs of the land owners. However when a broader range of ecosystem services was incorporated (e.g. social welfare, GHG miti- gation, nitrogen mitigation, waterfowl, recreation, etc.) the estimate rose to US$1 035 a hectare. This market potential was higher than the land-owner opportunity costs, and pro- vides a viable incentive to land owners to consider joining the wetlands restoration programme (Jenkins et al, 2009). The challenge however remains in developing these poten- tial markets for ecosystem services. The developing Nitro- gen Credit Trading market is described by Jenkins et al.
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