Background

In 2002, WSP-AF, DWAF, and WSSCC hosted AfricaSan, the first African conference on sanitation and hygiene, with the overall goal to accelerate sanitation and hygiene work in Africa in fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the aims of NEPAD.  Over 150 decision-makers, including 12 ministers, sector professionals and activists from over 20 African countries and elsewhere, made recommendations and issued a political statement that influenced the adoption of a specific sanitation MDG target by the international community at the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Following the conference, WSP-Africa in partnership with several institutions organized AfricaSan-South in Gaborone, Botswana in 2003; AfricaSan-East and AfricaSan-West in 2005 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso respectively. The sub-regional meetings focused on specific challenges and support innovative activities to improve sanitation and hygiene practices. The series of meetings was followed by:

  the development of a Sanitation Advocacy Tool Kit tested in Uganda

  publication of an open letter signed by the Minister of Health from Benin to raise the profile of
      sanitation and hygiene

  development of the Benin National Hand Washing Program funded by Netherlands and
       currently under implementation

  organization of the National Sanitation Forum in Mali with technical assistance from Burkina
      Faso and Senegal

   development of the Sanitation Marketing Program of Tanzania and Uganda funded by (SIDA)
       and DFID respectively, and currently under implementation

  scaling up of the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Movement in Ethiopia

  establishment of a Hygiene Promotion Network for East Africa which includes Hand
      Washing Programs in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya and a study around the simplification of
      PHAST in Tanzania.

The African context

In 2004, only 59% of the world population had access to any type of improved sanitation facility. The latest report from the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) shows that with less than 40% sanitation coverage, Sub-Saharan Africa fares most poorly globally against other regions such as Latin America and the Caribbean and Northern Africa which have each achieved over 70% sanitation coverage. The JMP report points out that if current trends persist up to 2015, the absolute number of people without improved sanitation will decline by 221 million. However, sub-Saharan Africa will end up with 91 million more unserved than in 2004.

WSP- Africa estimates that annual benefits for Africa if the sanitation MDG targets are met are:

•    Diarrhea cases avoided: 1,239,000

•    Hours gained due to closer access to sanitation facilities: 38,616,000

•    School days gained (5-14 age group): 1,700,000

•    Health sector treatment costs avoided (diarrhea): 1,130,000 US$ 

 About the AfricaSan+ 5 Conference

In light of this grim status and with 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation set by the UN General Assembly to help accelerate progress on sanitation, AfricaSan+ 5 seeks to contribute to this goal by bringing together high-level decision-makers and stakeholders to take stock of progress made since AfricaSan 2002, review the actions that African countries have taken, share lessons and successes, and identify further key actions that can strengthen African sanitation and hygiene promotion programs towards achieving the MDG target.

Participants will consist of at least 250 invited and sponsored delegates including ministers and ministerial representatives from the region; managerial-level delegates from the public and private sectors; civil society, external support agencies, academia and professionals from the media. Delegates from Latin America and the Caribbean, South and East Asia, and the Pacific region, are also expected to deliberate on critical issues and share sanitation and hygiene lessons and successes.

AfricaSan+ 5 will incorporate a ministerial roundtable, which will include ministers for health, sanitation, finance, decentralization, environment, and planning from participating African countries. Ministers will be expected to work alongside senior decision-makers and experts to build a strong dialogue on political and technical issues related to sanitation. The emerging ministerial declaration will be refined with the participation of all stakeholders during the final open session. Other conference activities will include plenary technical sessions, technical group discussions, action planning, and field visits. A knowledge fair will showcase latest innovations in sanitation and hygiene experiences, products and services, publications, marketing and promotion techniques and tools.

 What to expect at AfricaSan+ 5

Conference deliberations will be conducted in both French and English around the following themes:

   scaling up sustainable sanitation & hygiene programs

   financing sanitation at scale

  sanitation leadership and institutional accountability

   safeguarding the environment and public health

   building a knowledge network for advocacy and action 

AfricaSan+ 5 seeks to achieve the objectives of:

   Assessing the status of sanitation and hygiene in sub-Saharan Africa and the scale of the
       challenge to meet the MDG on sanitation by 2015. 

   Reviewing actions taken to improve the state of sanitation and hygiene, and sharing
       experiences and lessons from participating countries and organizations, in particular
       success stories and approaches that show promise for achieving sanitation take up and
       up-scaling hygiene improvement.

   Discussing and developing an action plan, focusing on strategic areas, to improve
       monitoring of sanitation and hygiene in the region and accelerate sanitation and hygiene
       programs regionally and in selected countries across the region.

   Generating political commitment, embodied in a joint declaration, to develop and implement
       effective regional and national policies, programs and partnerships based on agreements
       for collaborative effort at the regional level and specific actions at country levels.

   Raising the profile of sanitation and hygiene as a determinant to sustainable development
       in the region and strengthening leadership and advocacy for sustained sanitation and
       behavior change.

 Updates on conference preparation

Video conferences: preparatory meetings were held separately via video conference for Francophone and Anglophone countries in May and June this year. The meetings served to inform stakeholders and consolidate country inputs to the conference as well as the objectives, structure and outputs of the conference.

Documents: Further preparations for the conference include compilation of a background paper which will provide a comparative analysis of country progress towards meeting the sanitation MDG and the WASH targets as well as preparation of Country Sanitation Reviews (CSRs) for the MDG target for at least 17 African countries. Major findings of the CSR reports will be presented at a plenary session by the head of the country delegation. The CSR reports, which will be modeled on the WSS MDG Country Sector Overview (CSO) Reports, will include:

   a sanitation MDG outlook

   sanitation sector preparedness overview (strategy, institutional arrangements, financing,
        M&E, capacity

   sector sustainability overview

WSP-Africa will also produce six Field Notes as inputs to the conference and will collaborate with other international agencies to gather global experiences in the possible areas of condominium sanitation (Latin America), Community-Led Total Sanitation (South Asia), and EcoSan (China).

A regional knowledge-development and sharing strategy, regional and national action plans and partnerships based on agreements for collaborative effort at the regional level and specific actions at country levels are expected to emerge from the conference together with the ministerial declaration and a press release.

Inter-institutional collaboration

Co-hosts: Government of South Africa Ministry of Water Affairs and Forestry and Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF), supported by Ethekwini Council (City of Durban); African Development Bank; AMCOW; UNICEF; UNSGAB; WSP-AF (supported by the World Bank) and WSSCC

Partners: WHO