By Romain Brillié, GGGI Resident Representative
The 9th World Water Forum is an opportunity for GGGI to participate in accelerating the transition towards sustainable water resources management, by sharing its experience as an inter-governmental organisation whose mandate is to support and assist States in achieving their sustainable development objectives and their targets under the Paris Climate Agreement. The issue of water and sanitation is an essential component in the development programme of green secondary cities in Senegal, as it ensures a resilient system against the effects of climate change in favour of vulnerable communities. GGGI's intervention themes include the strategic objective of improving access to sustainable services such as improved sanitation.
GGGI supports the Government of Senegal, through the Ministry of Water and Sanitation, in particular its departments, namely the Sanitation Directorate and ONAS, to improve access to resilient sanitation services and thus continue to achieve the MDG6. 2. Through two projects financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, GGGI is involved in structuring sustainable sewage sludge management projects in three cities: Kaolack, Kolda and Tivaouane, as well as improving the political and institutional framework of the sub-sector.
It is in this perspective that an application for the "Dakar 2021 Initiative" label was submitted for one of these projects demonstrating the link between sanitation, climate change and the mobilisation of financing for investments along the entire value chain. The Forum will provide an opportunity to exchange with decision-makers, institutions, universities and the private sector on the sub-sector's international and national challenges, and to identify long-term prospects for progress.
GGGI is committed to the preparation of the Forum through a partnership with the Executive Secretariat. A number of activities have already been defined to give content to this collaboration, including participation in working groups on the priorities "Water Security and Sanitation" and "Tools and Means", as well as in the high-level sessions.
We hope to contribute to the mobilisation of actors at the highest level in favour of SDO6, in the current context of health, economic, social and ecological crisis. The Forum will also be an opportunity to share GGGI's experience in mobilising financing for the sanitation sub-sector, through the involvement of the private sector, and to make visible the link between climate change and sanitation, for a better consideration in public policies. It will also be an opportunity for us to learn from other related initiatives and to highlight the importance of self-sustaining sanitation as a solution to the financing gap. Finally, we would like to share with the public and private sectors recent innovations in this field and the potential to make the sanitation sector a "productive" sector, through the valorisation of by-products.
About GGGI
The Global Green Growth Institute, or GGGI, was established as an international inter-governmental organisation at the RIO + 20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2012. GGGI was admitted by the United Nations General Assembly to observer status at the 2013 Conference of the Parties in Warsaw.
GGGI aims to promote sustainable development through green growth models in 38 developing and emerging countries. These country programmes cover the following priority themes (i) Sustainable Energy; (ii) Water and Sanitation; (iii) Green Cities; (iv) and Resilient Territories.
The objective is to achieve strategic outcomes such as : reducing GHGs, creating green jobs, increasing access to sustainable services in sectors such as energy, public transport, water and sanitation, but also sustainable waste management, improving air quality, providing adequate ecosystem services, improving our adaptation to climate change, promoting green governance and mobilising resources for green investments.
