Performance of Private Sanitation Service Providers in Benin and Côte D’ivoire

Description

The Municipal Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (MuniWASH) Activity in West Africa is providing technical support to improve the governance and management of municipal water and sanitation services in 16 municipalities in Benin and Côte d’Ivoire. Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), MuniWASH is also collaborating with the African Water Association (AfWA) as a learning partner to capture lessons and help guide urban WASH programming.

As part of this support, USAID MuniWASH facilitated a self-assessment of ninety-three private sanitation service providers in March 2022, largely composed of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), operating in the 16 municipalities. The two principal types of MSMEs include providers of sanitation products, largely manufacturing and construction companies, and providers of sanitation services, or sludge-emptying companies. The Enterprise Capacity Building Tool (ECBT) was used to assess the performance of service providers in the functional areas of a) Administration; b) Human resources management; c) Production and services; d) Supply, inventory management, and logistics; e) Marketing; and f) Accounting and financial management.

The results of the self-evaluations showed that the sanitation MSMEs had significant gaps to fill in the identified functional areas. Higher performance was noted in marketing; supply, inventory management, and logistics; and production and services, while there were considerable shortcomings in the remaining areas of administration; human resources management; and accounting and financial management.

This learning note describes the endogenous factors supporting and limiting the performance of private sanitation providers in Benin and Côte d’Ivoire. This note presents the evaluation approach, the results obtained, and the lessons learned.