USAID/West Africa's Sanitation Service Delivery Program

USAID/WA's Sanitation Service Delivery Program will build on recent USAID support to the West Africa WASH sector and complement USAID’s ongoing works on broader health issues. In all respects, Sanitation Service Delivery will support governments, bilateral donors and multilaterals throughout West Africa in their initiatives in sanitation and health.A catalytic approach to investment in the sanitation sector is necessary to address the chronic and persistent problem of expanding sanitation access to services (especially for the poor) and to more effectively address systemic challenges of scale and of sustainability. The USAID/West Africa SSD Program can play a critical role in advancing cutting edge solutions to the region’s sanitation challenge, placing USAID in a role of regional leadership in the sector. USAID/Sanitation Service Delivery (SSD) is one of three mechanisms of USAID/WA’s WASH programming designed to increase quality health services in West Africa.In targeted countries, SSD shall cultivate the private sector in order to:1. Increase use of improved sanitation and safe disposal & reuse of fecal waste at scale;2. Disseminate learning on market-based approaches to provision of sanitation services throughout West Africa.While USAID/WA’s investment in WASH will lead to substantial near-term benefits to peri-urban and urban poor in the three targeted countries, the program vision is driven primarily by deeper sanitation sector reform goals. Beyond immediate beneficiaries, the most critical contributions lie in developing, testing, and replicating innovative and scalable models that will contribute directly to structural change within the sanitation sector in the West Africa region. The “payoff” from these activities will not always be seen with immediate “numbers of people served” in the short-term. However, all activities target strategic leverage points that address root causes behind low rates of sanitation access and the poor record of past project sustainability.USAID/WA's Sanitation Service Delivery Program has three components:Component 1: Increase use of improved sanitationComponent 2: Increase use of safe disposal and reuse of fecal waste.Component 3: Disseminate learning on market-based approaches.The sanitation service delivery program will focus on private sector-led sanitation service delivery models in urban and peri-urban areas in western Africa region.