Water supply and sanitation in Burkina Faso are characterized by high access to water supply in urban areas, while access to an at least basic water resources in rural areas, where three quarters of the population live, remains relatively low. An estimated one third of water facilities in rural areas are out of service because of a lack of maintenance. Access to basic sanitation lags significantly behind access to water supply.
The government and donor agencies alike consider urban water supply in Burkina Faso one of the rare development success stories in Sub-Saharan Africa. Access to an improved water source in urban areas increased from 73% in 1990 to 95% in 2008. Water supply that used to be intermittent now is continuous. The national utility Office National de l'Eau et de l'Assainissement (ONEA) was insolvent twenty years ago and provided poor service to a small number of customers. As of 2010, it has grown substantially and is financially healthy. The World Bank and USAID today consider the public company one of the best performing water utilities in Sub-Saharan Africa. Increasing cost recovery and improving the efficiency of service provision have been important elements in the turnaround of the utility. In the late 1990s, the World Bank had insisted that the private sector should play a significant role in providing water services in Burkina Faso. The government rejected this approach. Instead, it pragmatically integrated certain principles of market-oriented sector reforms into its own policies in order to further increase the performance of the public utility.
In rural areas, a 2004 decentralization law has given responsibility for water supply to the country's 301 municipalities (communes) which have no track record in providing or contracting out these services. Implementation of the decentralization has been slow. Municipalities, whose capacities are being strengthened, are contracting out service provision to local private companies, or in some cases to ONEA.
The government has adopted a National Sanitation Strategy in 2008 and President Blaise Compaoré launched a campaign in 2010 to boost the implementation of the strategy.
Access
Methodologies and data sources. The Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP) of WHO and UNICEF, which is the internationally accepted source for the measurement to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for water supply and sanitation, relies on the compilation of various surveys (Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), Multiple Cluster Indicators Surveys (MCIS)) to establish access rates. These surveys typically assess the availability of infrastructure, not service quality. The 2017 estimates for Burkina Faso thus indicate access rates to an at least basic water source of 79 percent in urban areas and 43 percent in rural areas. The Government relies on an entirely different approach, based on the concept of "reasonable access". This concept differs from the JMP approach by taking into account aspects of service quality, such as waiting time and water quality. According to the government approach, the water access rates in 2005 were lower than under the JMP approach, standing at 74 percent in urban areas and 60 percent in rural areas.World Bank:Burkina Faso - Urban Water Sector Project, Project Appraisal Document, Annex 1:Country and Sector Background, 30 April 2009, accessed on August 10, 2010 While the “reasonable access” approach is more sophisticated, it also faces greater challenges in terms of availability of data.
Water supply. In 2015, 54% of the population had access to "at least basic" water, 79% and 43%, in urban and rural areas respectively. Still, in 2015, around 8 million lacked access to "at least basic" water.
According to JMP estimates access to an at least basic water source in urban areas only increased from 75% in 2000 to 79% in 2015. In rural areas access increased from 41% in 2000 to 43% in 2015. The increase of access to water supply in urban areas was facilitated by the introduction of a social connection program that reduced connection fees in 2005 (see below under tariffs). However, some of the newly installed connections are not used, either because the connected compound was still waiting for actual occupancy or because households were unable to pay the monthly water bills because their income was either too low or too irregular. The share of “inactive connections” was 20% in Bobo Diolassou and 7% in Ouagadougou.
Sanitation. In 2015, 23% of the population had access to "at least" sanitation, 48% and 12%, in urban and rural areas respectively. Still, in 2015, around 13 million lacked access to "at least basic" sanitation.
Sanitation in Burkina Faso is mostly in the form of on-site sanitation, including latrines for defecation and soakaway pits for greywater from showers and washing facilities. Compared to the significant increase in access to water supply, access to adequate sanitation increased only slightly between 2000 and 2015 from 75% to 79% in urban areas and from 2% to 12% in rural areas. Open defecation remains widespread, estimated at 48% of the population. Those who have neither access to adequate sanitation nor defecate in the open use shared or unimproved latrines. These are not considered adequate sanitation facilities by the WHO.Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP): Burkina Faso: improved sanitation coverage estimates, 1980-2010, accessed on August 10, 2010 Burkina Faso fully subsidizes the capital costs for latrines in rural areas. Despite this effort, between 2000 and 2008 the number of people defecating in the open in rural areas increased.
ONEA has substantially invested in sanitation by helping households to build such shower and washing facilities connected to soakaway pits, as well as improved latrines. ONEA subsidizes these facilities with the support of international donors and with the cash generated by the sanitation surcharge on water bills. The grants provided by ONEA amount on average to 40 percent of the cost of facilities, thus making them affordable to households. Sewerage plays a marginal role in Burkina Faso. There are only 235 connections to sewers in the entire country, all in Ouagadougou.
Service quality
In urban areas, water supply is mostly continuous. In Ouagadougou this constitutes a significant improvement from the times before the construction of the Ziga dam and the efficiency improvements of the national water utility when supply was intermittent.
In rural areas, most residents fetch water from open wells or hand pumps. As in other African countries, the sustainability of hand pumps and other water supply systems is an issue. There are conflicting data about the share of water systems in rural areas that are out of service in Burkina Faso. According to data quoted by UNICEF, 23% of pumps in rural areas are out of service because of a lack of maintenance.UNICEF: Water, Environment and Health: Burkina Faso, accessed on August 9, 2010 According to data quoted by the World Bank, of the more than 50,000 water points in rural areas 33,000 (8,000 “modern wells” and 25,000 boreholes equipped with handpumps) are functioning, i.e. more than one third of wells are out of service. Of 570 small piped systems in rural areas, 400 are functioning, i.e. also almost one third are not functioning.
Water resources, water use and infrastructure
National overview of water resources. Water resources are scarce in Burkina Faso. Water availability varies greatly between regions and seasons, as well as from year to year. In the South, average rainfall is as high as 1,200mm during a six-month wet season, while in the North the wet season lasts only three months and rainfall is only 300mm.FAO: Aquastat Country Profile, Version 2005, accessed on August 10, 2010 The only rivers in the country that carry water all year around are the Mouhoun River (Black Volta) and the Nakambe River (White Volta), the other rivers carrying water only during the wet season. Building dams has been the most common way of storing water for the dry season, even though evaporation can reach 2,000 mm/year thus causing substantial water losses from open reservoirs. A substantial portion of surface water resources is shared with neighboring countries. For example, the Nakambe River - the main source of supply for the capital, Ouagadougou - and the Mouhoun River are shared with Ghana. Surface water resources vary between 8 billion cubic meters (BCM)/year in an average year and 4 BCM in a dry year. The lower figure corresponds to less than 300 cubic meters per capita and year, which is well below the level of 1,000 cubic meters per capita and year that is considered the threshold for “water stress”.
Groundwater is unevenly distributed and can only be extracted in certain areas, specifically in weathered areas above the bedrock and fractured zones. Even there yields are limited to about 10 m3/day per borehole, which is barely enough to supply a small village with water.
Water use. Water use in 2000 was 0.7 BCM or less than 10% of surface water resources in an average year and less than 20% in a dry year. Only about 0.1 BCM, or slightly more than 1% of total water resources, are used for domestic water supply. Irrigation and livestock watering are the main water uses. FAO: Aquastat Burkina Faso, 2005, accessed on August 9, 2010
Ouagadougou water supply infrastructure. With its more than 1.2 million inhabitants the capital Ouagadougou is by far the largest city in Burkina Faso. It is supplied mostly by surface water from five reservoirs: The "hill dams" Ouaga 1, 2 and 3 located within the city and forming Lake Ouagadougou, the Lumbila reservoir (36 million m3 storage) on the Massili river, about 10 km away and completed in 1947, and the Ziga reservoir (200 million m3 storage) which is about 50 km away and that started providing water to the capital in 2004, supplying about 70% of its needs in 2008. The catchment area of the "hill dams" is today completely built up with settlements that have inadequate sanitation systems. Furthermore, rubbish is washed into the reservoirs during the rainy season. Furthermore, over the years, the hill dam reservoirs and the Lumbila reservoir have been gradually filled with mud and sediment. Water from the hill dams and the Lumbila reservoir is treated in the Paspanga water treatment plant, which supplied about 20-25% of the water needs of the city in 2008. Groundwater provides for about 5-10% of the water needs of the city.UN Habitat: Water for African Cities:Burkina Faso, accessed on August 9, 2010 P. Cecchi, Institut de Recherche pour le développement (IRD):L’alimentation en eau de la ville de Ouagadougou, ca. 2003, accessed on August 19, 2010 Lefaso.net:La station de traitement d’eau de Paspanga retrouve 40% de son efficacité, 11 September 2009, accessed on August 19, 2010
Ouagadougou sanitation infrastructure. Most of the population of Ouagadougou uses latrines. Only about 5% use septic tanks and an even smaller proportion is connected to a 43 km-sewer network completed in 2006 in the city center and that serves mainly commercial, industrial and institutional clients. The network discharges to a 20-ha stabilization pond in the Kossodo industrial area, which also treats sludge from septic tanks brought in by tankers.
History and recent events Creation of a national water utility (1977-1990)