SENEGAL/EGYPT: London grants €117m for wastewater treatment and reuse
The African Development Bank (AfDB) is providing financing of €117 million to the governments of Senegal and Egypt for the sanitation and reuse of treated wastewater. The funds are being provided by the United Kingdom as part of its "Room 2 Run" guarantee programme.
Of the €117 million in funding announced by the African Development Bank (AfDB), €80 million is earmarked for Egypt and €37 million for Senegal. The pan-African bank obtained this funding from the UK government as part of its Room 2 Run guarantee programme. This is a $2 billion guarantee provided to the AfDB for climate finance in Africa between now and 2027, with a 50-50 split between adaptation and mitigation. City of London insurers are contributing $400 million to this programme.
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In Egypt, this new funding will be used to implement the third phase of the Gabel El Asfar wastewater treatment project, inaugurated in Cairo in 2005. The wastewater treatment plant, which has a capacity of 500,000 m3 per day, underwent its latest extension in 2018, carried out by a consortium made up of the Spanish company Acciona Agua, the German firm Passavant-Roediger and the Egyptian company Hassan Allam Construction, to improve the treatment of effluent discharged into the drainage system. The plan is now to recycle this wastewater for irrigation purposes. The aim is to increase the area of arable land by 28,328 hectares in the land of the pharaohs in order to reduce food insecurity.
In Egypt, it will also be a question of “improving access to safely managed sanitation services, raising the standards of compliance of treatment plants and creating jobs, which will benefit 5 million people”, says the AfDB.
Improving sanitation for 1.45 million Senegalese
Senegal, which is also coping with climate change, will use the €37 million in funding to strengthen the resilience of its people. New facilities will improve the supply of drinking water and sanitation.
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At least 1.45 million people, 51% of them women, in disadvantaged areas of the West African country will benefit from this project, which will have “an incredible impact on people’s health and livelihoods”, says Andrew Mitchell, the British Minister of State for Development and Africa.
