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African Water Facility Seeks $500 Mln for Urban Sanitation Fund

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The challenge of water supply and sanitation on the African continent is very acute today. UNICEF has revealed that in Africa, 418 million people still lack even basic drinking water, while 779 million people lack basic sanitation and 839 million people are deprived of basic hygiene services.
The African Water Facility, a unit of the African Development Bank (AfDB), plans to solicit private investors in an effort to set up a $500 million urban sanitation fund, Mtchera Chirwa, the facility’s coordinator, told Western media.
Since its inception in 2004, the African Water Facility has functioned solely as a grant provider, but as donor funding has begun to dwindle, the official said, the facility is adapting its approach, including debt financing in some cases.

In this vein, the new sanitation fund will commence lending "for longer term sustainability," Chirwa noted.

The official argued that it could take a decade to raise the funds expected to come from AfDB, donors, and private investors.
According to the coordinator, the fund will focus on improving sewerage systems in African cities, delivering sanitation services in areas not connected to sewers, and financing projects to collect waste for use as fertilizer or in biomass energy plants.
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Meanwhile, grant funding for rural water projects will continue, which the official said should rise to $55-65 million a year within two years from $22 million at present.

Chirwa added that since the formal start of operations, the facility has been involved in 133 projects in 52 of Africa's 54 countries, except for Libya and Mauritius.

In early July, to achieve better access to water for communities, Ghana's President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo officially commissioned the third phase of the $12.5 million District Water Supply Project in the Volta Region.
Earlier, South Africa and Lesotho completed the second phase of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project to supply water to South Africa's Gauteng region and generate hydroelectricity for Lesotho.
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