Guinea Water and Sanitation Project

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Guinea is a water rich country, endowed with 1,165 rivers spread over 23 watersheds, 14 of which are shared with its neighbouring countries, including the Niger, Senegal and Gambia rivers (respectively the first, second and fourth largest rivers in West Africa). Guinea is a member of the associated regional river basin authorities, including NBA (9 countries), OMVS (4 countries) and OMVG (3 countries). These activities are still at a nascent stage and need substantial support to scale them up. There is also a need to improve Guinea’s participation in transboundary platforms, to enable the country to benefit fully from its position as an upstream riparian and mobilize its surface water resources for multiple uses. There are also significant groundwater resources but they have not been well managed, with some gaps in knowledge about the state of the resource, and weak institutional capacity to monitor and exploit groundwater in a sustainable manner. While some groundwater modeling studies have been undertaken, there is little understanding of the proliferation of boreholes in major urban areas and the potential impact on water resources.Guinea has a population of 13.1 million and is experiencing a strong demographic growth of more than 2.84%. Although two thirds of the population of Guinea is still rural , the country is undergoing a strong urbanisation process. Only 64% of the national population has access to improved water supply and 30% to safely managed sanitation. Water services are provided by the national water utility, SEG, but it has been undermined by weak financial and operational capacity for several years. In the face of rapid population growth (3.5% a year in Greater Conakry), there is currently a water production deficit of 180,000 m3/day, equivalent to 120% of current production. While there is existing water production infrastructure such as dams, reservoirs and boreholes, these assets suffer from poor operational functionality and are in need of repair. The distribution network is also dilapidated with an estimated 60% of non—revenue water (physical and commercial losses) in SEG’s network. A Water Masterplan for Greater Conakry was developed in 2019 and a similar study is currently underway for secondary towns and cities. With an estimated 1.345 billion € needed for water infrastructure until 2040 for Greater Conakry alone, the investment needs are significant and mobilizing funding and financing is an urgent task.Sanitation has been a long-neglected part of the country’s overall development. Sanitation, covering sewerage, onsite, rainwater evacuation and solid waste, is managed under the Ministry of Housing, Urbanism and Territorial Development (MINHUT) with local communes responsible for services, but formal network services are available to only a small part of the capital city, with the rest of the country making do with rudimentary sanitation facilities and informal services such as for pit emptying. Several development partners are already starting to invest in wastewater infrastructure to start addressing the gap in services but more needs to be done to improve sanitation service delivery. As the Guinea national sanitation strategy (2022) noted, the institutional arrangements are inadequate given the growing population, significant backlog in investments and the poor quality of services – with knock-on impacts on human health and the environment. A Master Plan has been developed and several recommendations submitted to the government for addressing this serious crisis. To address the most pressing water and sanitation challenges, the Guinea Water and Sanitation Project (PEAG) will focus on investments to increase water production, water supply and water services to boost access to water for unconnected people in Greater Conakry. At the same time, these investments will enhance the reliability and quality of water services for people who are already connected to SEG's water services but only receive water intermittentl. A major non-revenue water reduction component will address leakages and dysfunction in the current distribution network, which will also improve SEG's operational efficiency and enhance services for current and future customers. To ensure the sustainability of investments, the project will support institutional reforms, particularly as regards the urban water utility, SEG, and the sanitation sector whose institutional and regulatory arrangements require massive reinforcement. In parallel, an the Guinea Fiscal Sustainability and Efficiency Reforms Development Policy Financing (P501272) is currently being prepared and includes prior actions related to the revision of the water policy based on tariff methodology that aims at operational cost recovery for SEG over time. to the Government of Guinea will inIn addition, the project will support the GoG to implement tariff reforms, updates to sector regulations and policies, and other measures needed to strengthen the capacity of sector institutions to achieve universal access to water and sanitation services. The project will be implemented using the IPF with PBC instrument to ensure adequate incentives for achieving investments and reforms.