 
Water supply and sanitation in Senegal is characterized by a relatively-high level of access compared to most of sub-Saharan Africa. A public–private partnership (PPP) has operated in Senegal since 1996, with Senegalaise des Eaux (SDE, a subsidiary of ) the private partner. SDE does not own the water system, but manages it on a 10-year lease from the Senegalese government. Between 1996 and 2014, water sales doubled to 131 million cubic meters per year; the number of household connections increased by 165 percent, to over 638,000. According to the World Bank, "The Senegal case is regarded as a model of public-private partnership in sub-Saharan Africa". A national sanitation company is in charge of sewerage, wastewater treatment and stormwater drainage, which is modeled on the national sanitation company of Tunisia and is unique in sub-Saharan Africa.
Access.
In 2015, 75 percent of Senegal's population had access to at least one basic water source and 48 percent had access to basic sanitation. There is a significant difference between water supply in urban areas (91-percent access) and rural areas (63 percent). Sanitation access rates also differ significantly between urban and rural areas, with 66 percent of the urban population having sanitation access and 35 percent of the rural population having access. In urban areas, 75 percent of the population has access to water connections in their house or on their property and 17 percent rely on water kiosks and standpipes. Nineteen percent of the country's urban population are connected to sewers, and 60 percent are served by septic tanks or improved household-level latrines.
Source: Joint Monitoring Program for Water and Sanitation of the WHO and UNICEF
A key source for these figures is the Senegalese survey, part of the WHO's 2003 World Health Survey. The figure for access to an improved source of water in urban areas (92 percent) is somewhat lower than the figure reported by the utility SDE and quoted, among others, by the World Bank (98 percent).
Service.
Water supply in Dakar and most other cities in Senegal is continuous. In 1994, service was provided for an average of 16 hours per day. Faced with increasing demand from newly-connected users and constraints on water resources, the private operator initially distributed supply interruptions equitably among Dakar's neighborhoods. The average hours of supply per day were increased to 19 in 2001, and a continuous water supply was achieved in 2006; this was facilitated by the 1999 expansion of a water pipeline from Lac de Guiers. In 2004, 97.7 percent of water samples were in conformity with microbiological water norms (up from 96 percent in 1996).
Water resources.
Senegal's climate is tropical, with well-defined dry and humid seasons. Dakar's annual rainfall of about falls between June and October. The mean annual precipitation ranges from per year in the north to per year in the south. Interior temperatures are much higher than they are along the coast.
The largest water resource in the country is the Senegal River in the north, which is shared with Mauritania, Mali and Guinea. Its average flow is 37 billion cubic meters per year. The Lac de Guiers is an important water reservoir in the upper delta of the Senegal River, with a storage volume of almost 500 million cubic meters. It is a chief source of fresh water for Dakar, hundreds of kilometers south-west, through underground pipes. Although Senegal River water is abundant, water in most of the rest of the country is scarce. Other major surface water bodies include the Casamance River, the Gambia River, the Saloum River, the Geba River, the Falémé River and the Tamna lagoon near Thiès.
Senegal has about three billion cubic meters of renewable groundwater, excluding groundwater which overlaps surface water. Total water withdrawals in 1987 were 1.4 billion cubic meters, of which 92 percent was for agriculture, three percent for industry and five percent for domestic uses. Groundwater reserves include aquifers up to deep in the Casamance and deep in Kaolack and Tamba, and crop-outs near Dakar and Thiès. They also include aquifers at a depth of . Groundwater stocks are estimated at seven billion cubic meters.
Groundwater overexploitation (overdrafting) is a serious problem in parts of Senegal. Mont Rolland, from Dakar, was known for its mineral springs; villagers currently need to drill as deep as to pump water. The village's groundwater was seriously depleted by over-extraction by the mineral-water company, which is presently closed. Almost 80 percent of Senegalese horticulturalists are located near Mont Rolland.
Dakar is supplied primarily with water drawn from fossil aquifers which may be over-exploited and contaminated with salt water. Some water is being brought in from the Ngnith water-treatment plant on the Lac de Guiers through a pipeline whose capacity was increased in 1999. Because of growing demand and the need to close contaminated boreholes, surface water will have to be brought from the Senegal River, about away, requiring high investment costs to expand the existing pipeline. The additional Senegal River water is expected to increase from 0.5 m3/s to about 6.0 m3/s in 2030. The requirements are well within Senegal's water rights under agreements with neighboring countries. However, such large quantities of water would have a significant environmental impact on the Lac de Guiers and the Senegal River delta. Future low flow on the Senegal River is difficult to predict due to climate change and uncertainties about the Manantali Dam.
Most of Dakar's wastewater is discharged, without treatment, into the Atlantic Ocean. The Cambérène wastewater-treatment plant, Senegal's largest, treats about 15 percent of the wastewater generated in Dakar. Since 2007, the station has been operated and expanded by the French company SAUR. Some of the treated wastewater is being reused. By 2007, water was being reused for a golf course and was envisaged for the irrigation of trees, green space and vegetable gardens after tertiary treatment.
Infrastructure.
In 2005, ONAS operated a sewer network, 57 sewage pumping stations and seven wastewater-treatment plants, and had 70,931 subscribers in Dakar, Saint-Louis, Senegal Saint-Louis, Rufisque, Louga, Thiès, Saly and Kaolack. It also operated of stormwater drains and seven stormwater pumping stations in Dakar and four towns.
Responsibility.
Policy.
The Ministère de l'Urbanisme, de l'Habitat, de l'Hydraulique urbaine, de l'Hygiène publique et de l'Assainissement sets policy for urban water supply and sanitation. The Ministère de l'Hydraulique rurale et du Réseau hydrographique national is in charge of rural water supply. These responsibilities had been under the Ministry of Agriculture.
Service provision.
Responsibility for urban water supply is shared between the Senegalese national water company (Société Nationale des Eaux du Senegal, SONES), a holding company, and Sénégalaise des Eaux (SDE), a private company. The French water company SAUR initially owned a 51-percent share in SDE and the remaining 49 percent was divided between Senegal (five percent), Senegalese individuals (39 percent) and employees (five percent). In 2011, SAUR was not listed as a shareholder on the SDE website. Its shares are held by the West African infrastructure holding company Finagestion, which is majority-owned by the US-based, Africa-focused private equity fund Emerging Capital Partners. The Office National de l'Assainissement du Sénégal (ONAS) is in charge of sanitation.
In rural areas, user associations known as Associations d'usagers de forages ruraux (ASUFOR) manage water systems supplied by tube wells. Senegal obliges them to sign maintenance contracts with private companies to ensure system sustainability, and they can delegate the operation of their systems to third parties.
Approaches.
Approaches introduced to the Senegalese water sector include the country-wide lease contract, the public-private-NGO-community partnership for standpipes in Dakar, and the use of small enterprises to maintain rural and small-town water systems with the support of micro-credits.
Urban water-supply lease.
One of the best-known and successful innovative approaches to water supply in Senegal is the lease signed in 1996. According to the Senegalese government, the number of clients of Sénégalaise des eaux (SDE) increased from 241,671 in 1996 to 638,629 in 2014. Out of almost 400,000 new connections, 206,000 served the poorest population, primarily on the outskirts of Dakar.
According to the World Bank, the government reached the poor by establishing a national fund to subsidize the private operator. It aimed to improve services to the poor for a lower price. Social connections were free, and a connection fee was charged for wealthier households. SDE and the Senegalese National Society of Water Usage (SONES) worked through a large NGO to identify the need for social connections, and the private operator set up a decentralized, computerized network of payment booths; this facilitated payments by domestic clients. The operator's remuneration was based on the amount of water produced and sold, providing an incentive to serve as many customers as possible and reduce water losses.
A 2006 study by the Boston Institute for Developing Economies (BIDE) estimated the net benefits of the lease at US$457 million. Customers had better access to more water and to the government, and small benefits ($6 million) accrued to the owners of the water company. Foreign lenders lost $14 million and employees lost $10 million in job losses and lower increases to wages and benefits.
The private operator was selected competitively in a two-stage bidding process. Four bidders, all French, participated in the first stage: Générale des Eaux (now Vivendi Environnement), Lyonnaise des Eaux (now SUEZ), the Société d'Aménagement Urbain et Rural (SAUR), and CISE (later merged with SAUR). Qualified bidders submitted a proposal, which was evaluated at a meeting. SAUR was invited to bid, although the company had advised SONEES since 1980. The World Bank opposed eliminating them from the bidding but SONEES was instructed to finish all contracts, end all contact, and give SAUR no access to their operation four months before the bidding. All four bidders were invited to submit revised technical proposals and financial bids; Lyonnaise des Eaux eliminated for non-compliance. The bid from Générale des Eaux was also eliminated, since they refused to endorse some contract requirements. The two remaining bidders, CISE and SAUR, were invited to present second-stage bids. On October 25, 1995, SAUR was announced as the winner based on price. The company's bid was a water-supply rate of 236 F.CFA per cubic meter, 62 percent of the average tariff at the time.
According to critics such as the Dakar-based regional NGO Aide Transparence, the number of connections has only increased from 203,902 in 1996 to 264,161 in 2002. This contrasts with a 2002 SDE figure of 338,398 connections. The Aide Transparence report cited customer complaints about poorer water quality, increased use of mineral water in Senegal, and cuts in tap water one or more days.
Community partnership for standpipes in Dakar.
Another approach is the community partnership with SONES, SDE, and an international NGO with local roots () to select locations for standpipes, build and operate them. The partnership installs metered standpipes for poor households who had used polluted well water. The program is demand-responsive, instead of relying on supply-side targeting of the poor. The community is involved in planning, construction, and maintenance, leading to strong ownership and nearly-100-percent cost recovery. Households pay the standpipe operator, who pays the utility for the water. The community chooses the operator (or a group of rotating operators) who may work for the community or, occasionally, for themselves for a share. There are two types of standpipe schemes. SONES finances the infrastructure cost in one, and ENDA finances the infrastructure of the other. The latter scheme, known as the "Eau Populaire" program, began in 1995. The SONES scheme has installed about 250 standpipes, and the ENDA scheme about 130. In 2001, An estimated 200,000 people had access to potable water with the Eau Populaire project in 2001, and it has led to a significant drop in waterborne illnesses in children. The project has also created several hundred jobs (standpipe operators who receive 30,000 to 80,000 CFA per month) and funds other local projects with standpipe revenue.
Rural water supply.
In rural areas, the government began supporting the introduction of sustainable management models for piped-water systems using boreholes in 1999 with the pilot project REGEFOR in central Senegal. The project includes the use of metering and volumetric pricing, maintenance contracts with private-sector companies, and microcredit support. The first pilot project covered 80 boreholes. In 2009, a private maintenance company was scheduled to be contracted for 621 boreholes in central Senegal. By January 2010, all of the country's 1,400 boreholes were expected to be covered by private maintenance contracts.
History and recent developments.
First public-private partnership (1960–1971).
1960–1971: The Compagnie Générale des Eaux du Sénégal, a subsidiary