SUEZ in Africa, positioning itself first and foremost as a partner!
African Day of Seas and Oceans, which is celebrated every 25 July, is an opportunity to remind people of the importance of the seas and oceans for the continent's development, provided they are protected. Professionals like SUEZ contribute to this on a daily basis, notably through innovative solutions for water and waste treatment, to prevent them from ending up in these coastal areas. The Group goes even further by providing tailor-made technical assistance and organizing the transfer of know-how to ensure the sustainability of projects.
Since the start of its activities in Africa in 1948, with the construction of its first drinking water plant in Sherbine, Egypt, SUEZ has made constant progress in its approach to the continent. Its aim is to support cities and industries in water management and waste recycling and recovery as a partner.
In the water and wastewater sector, over the years the Group has built more than 500 drinking water and wastewater treatment plants serving most of Africa’s capital cities. This is particularly true of Cairo in Egypt, where SUEZ has built several wastewater treatment plants, including the Gabal El Asfar plant on the east bank of the Nile, which has a treatment capacity of 2.5 million m3 of wastewater per day. Or the Alexandria East plant, with a capacity of 800,000 m3 per day. The special feature of these two plants is that they have additional units for the treatment of sewage sludge, generating electricity that makes them up to 65% energy self-sufficient. SUEZ has also managed the drinking water and wastewater services for Algiers in Algeria, and is currently active in drinking water in Senegal. Since 1 January 2020, SEN’EAU, for which SUEZ is the technical partner of reference, has been in charge of producing and distributing drinking water in the country’s urban and peri-urban areas.
On the continent, the Group has also set up decentralized compact units (UCD®) to rapidly meet the drinking water needs of towns with high population growth, islands or isolated towns, adapted to urgent needs and specific local circumstances. On the continent, these solutions have been installed in the cities of Bamako (Mali), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), Niamey (Niger) and Yaoundé (Cameroon), as well as in 32 secondary towns in Ivory Coast, totaling more than 40 UCD units to speed up access to water for more than a million Ivorians.
Support for waste management
SUEZ deploys sustainable waste recycling and treatment solutions. In the Moroccan city of Meknes, for example, SUEZ has rehabilitated its household waste storage site and created an innovative green landfill to meet the sustainable development objectives set by the Moroccan authorities. The company is also a leader in industrial waste management, with customers including Renault, PSA, Danone and Siemens. Waste treatment platforms have also been set up in the free trade zones of Tangiers and Kénitra.
In South Africa, the company acquired EnviroServ, the market leader in industrial waste treatment, with operations also in Uganda and Mozambique. With 2,200 employees, EnviroServ covers the entire country and offers a comprehensive range of services for the petrochemicals, manufacturing, metallurgy, energy and mining industries.
While these various achievements have enabled SUEZ to position itself in Africa, they have also confirmed the Group’s leading role in achieving universal water and sanitation coverage on the continent. Some twenty years ago, the company wanted to go further.
Tailor-made technical assistance and transfer of know-how to empower African companies
The Group’s new approach is to focus on tailor-made technical assistance, bringing expertise to the right place. Starting with the end consumer, providing them with quality water in sufficient quantity, accurate metering of the water actually consumed and the option of paying their bill by various means, including digital.
Then we move up the chain to network optimization, via leak detection and repair, connections and pressure management, so that water is not lost in the networks and reaches everyone.
‘Before, the only legacy the Group would leave in an African country was a facility or infrastructure. Today, we are helping to increase the level of expertise of the teams in the local entities that will be operating these infrastructures in the future, so that they can manage them on their own in good conditions and carry out future projects to meet the challenges of tomorrow’, explains François Doussin, SUEZ’s Managing Director for Africa. How can we do this? By developing or complementing local skills to bring them up to the Group’s international standards.
Cover photo: By AFRIK 21
