We want every household, school, health care facility, workplace and public place in Burkina Faso to have access to reliable and affordable drinking water, sanitation and hygiene services by 2030.
Basic water 54% | Basic sanitation 23% | Open defecation 48% | Basic hygiene 12% (JMP)
IRC's team of 12 is led by Director Juste Nansi. At the national level IRC's focus is on advocating at the highest level for WASH as a political and financial priority, whilst also championing the need to invest in strong local systems. Our primary partner district is the commune of Banfora, located in the Cascades region. In addition to work in Banfora we are also active in providing technical assistance in other districts nationwide.
Achieving the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) SDG is possible but profoundly challenging. National and municipal systems are needed to ensure investments in infrastructure are built on to provide uninterrupted and acceptable quality services. In practice, once WASH infrastructure has been built, its efficient operation, management and eventual replacement (outside of the main cities) happens fitfully, or not at all because the national and municipal systems necessary to do so are lacking. Clean, safe drinking water remains the exception rather than the rule. People's awareness of hygiene is weak or non-existent, and the practice of open defecation is still widespread (partly due to the absence of hygiene awareness). Untreated faecal matter makes its way back into the environment and food chain.
Friday 5th October 2018, the implementation stage of Banfora's strategic plan for SDG 6 was launched during a solemn ceremony in the district's function hall. It marks a milestone in Banfora's work towards achieving SDG 6.
By the end of 2016, Burkina Faso's presidential commitment to the water sector was phrased as "zero burden for water collection and a healthy living environment by 2020". There were budgeted national programmes for SDGs 6.1 and 6.2. It was the start of the process for revising the rural water supply strategy in order to improve service quality.
IRC has significantly contributed to these key sector strengths in its activities. Nevertheless, the WASH sector faces a lack of financing (findings from IRC's TrackFin study in 2017 showed that barely a third of sector programmes are financed). Also the sector still uses as its main performance indicators, the access rates inherited from the MDGs despite the adoption of the SDGs. Finally, social accountability for water and sanitation was very unstructured and ineffective. Most of the WASH NGOs are specialising in technical assistance to government while most CSOs active in social accountability (human rights, democracy, consumers' rights, etc.) didn't have WASH on their agenda.
Our main activities at national level for the 2021 horizon are:
Banfora is the capital of the "Cascades" region and has a population of 153,574 in 2017. It is one of the most water rich areas in the country. More information.
Banfora est le chef-lieu de la région des Cascades et a 153 574 habitants en 2017. C'est l'une des communes les mieux arrosées du pays. Plus d'information.
"Water, sanitation, and hygiene remain low priority on many political agendas", said Juste Hermann Nansi, IRC Burkina Faso country director in an interview with Devex.
"Leaders and the development community should seize on the high-level political interest in the preventive role of water, sanitation, and hygiene to help reach Sustainable Development Goal 3, which includes hand hygiene", said Juste Hermann Nansi, IRC Burkina Faso country director in this Devex article.
