From one to three regional master plans covering 87 districts
Published on: 26/07/2023
"The national aim to achieve universal access to drinking water must be implemented at the regional level. This can only be done through well-calibrated planning in the form of master plans. And we've been able to take this work to scale, extending master plans to 87 districts with the support of IRC through the financing of the European Union."
- Boukaré Sabo, Regional Director of Water and Sanitation for the Centre-West Region
In 2018, the district of Banfora developed its WASH master plan, yielding visible results on the ground. We supported the Technical Directorate for Water and Sanitation and coached community officers. As a result, the district is already
capable of directly implementing WASH projects and moving towards universal access to WASH services.
In 2020, after participating in the Banfora planning process, the Director General of ONEA approached IRC Burkina Faso to support 11 other district master plans. We were able to convince the European Union to allocate financial resources to provide this support and scale up the approach.
Since then, we've helped develop five new district WASH master plans and three regional master plans covering 87 districts: 25% of all districts in the country. In 2022, the regional master plans for Centre-East, Centre-South, and Centre-West
were launched by the Regional Directorates for Water and Sanitation. Regional Directors own their master plan and understand their importance to improving WASH services.
We'll continue to support this scaling, including mobilising funds to support districts, while also monitoring the risks linked to political instability and the insecurity in the country. A coup d'état has inhibited progress, particularly because the mayors involved in the master planning process have been replaced by presidents of special delegations who are now responsible for implementing the plans.
