From poo to profits: How the private sector can help bring sanitation to Africa

Africa can only prevent people from dying from wastewater and sanitation challenges if the private sector, which is also affected by the continent’s chronic sanitation gap, plays a greater part. This is one of the key conclusions of the inaugural Sanitation and Wastewater Management in Africa Atlas, which is being completed by GRID-Arendal and partners.

Africa’s sanitation challenges don’t just affect local communities. They also strain the economy. According to the 2012 Economic Impacts of Poor Sanitation in Africa report by the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Programme, 18 African countries – Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia – lost around US$5.5 billion a year because of inadequate sanitation.

GRID-Arendal’s Kristina Thygesen is not at all surprised.

“Not having access to proper toilets hampers employees’ productivity, thus companies’ efficiency and ability to contribute to the economy. The time workers are looking for a toilet can be spent learning, working, discussing innovations, and implementing those. The World Bank report shows that people in Sub-Saharan Africa on average spend up to 2.5 days a year finding a toilet,” she says.

This is where the Sanitation and Wastewater Management in Africa Atlas comes in. As a joint project by GRID-Arendal, the African Development Bank, and the United Nations Environment Programme, the document will serve as the first continental roadmap to showcase the scale of Africa’s wastewater and sanitation challenges as well as related investment opportunities. It will be published in December 2019.

Besides mobilising local and national policymakers to take sanitation more seriously, the atlas is intended to highlight the role of the private sector in helping the continent meet the sixth Sustainable Development Goal: Ensure access to water and sanitation for all. At the moment, Africa lags behind in its water and sanitation commitments. According to UNICEF, children under five in some African countries are 20 times more likely to die from illnesses linked to unsafe water and bad sanitation than from conflict. 

“One key obstacle we are facing in terms of providing universal access to safe water and sanitation is funding,” says Birguy Lamizana, programme officer at UN Environment’s Global Programme of Action and one of the authors of the atlas. “This is where businesses could come in as partners.”

She notes that private companies’ efforts to improve Africa’s water and sanitation situation shouldn’t be seen as charitable exercises, but as a strategies to help themselves and add value to their own business operations.

“From sanitation services provision to the collection of waste and developing that waste into new products, there are private sector opportunities everywhere. The atlas, once completed, will serve as a showcase of these and many other proven, lucrative wastewater and sanitation business opportunities that exist. The report, besides being a communication tool to bring more awareness to our decision-makers, intends to get private companies involved,” Lamizana says.

Paul Oberholster, chief researcher at South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, agrees that Africa’s wastewater and sanitation sector offers ample viable business opportunities for private companies from start-ups to established ventures.

“The by-products of sanitation are particularly interesting. There is a whole range of by-products that can be used for many purposes. You could turn the sludge into bio-fertiliser, bio-charcoal, or even building bricks,” says Oberholster, a toxicologist and limnologist who has more than 20 years of experience in assessing pollution in South African rivers.

He notes that rural areas need bio-fertiliser, energy, and building materials, as well as the jobs that come from producing them. “Many people in the rural areas are unemployed and want to work.”

Various sanitation innovations are being pioneered across the world, including a number that aim to convert human waste into wealth. One venture involved in sanitation by-products is Sanivation, a Kenyan company that installs mobile container-based toilets in low-income homes free of cost, then charges the client about US$7 for a twice-a-week waste collection service. This sludge is turned into bio-charcoal.

The Sol-char toilet is another example; it uses solar power to incinerate waste and turn it into fertiliser. Ingelia turns solid waste into charcoal. The Omniprocessor, a low-cost waste treatment plant funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, can convert sewage into potable water and electricity.

Oberholster points out that wastewater business opportunities also go beyond turning poo into profits.

“The atlas isn’t just about sanitation-related opportunities,” he says. “There are also plenty of opportunities in terms of treating, managing and reusing industrial wastewater and acid mine drainage. There are technologies that allow one, for instance, to recover precious metals from these wastewater streams. It is expensive, but it is an interesting opportunity nevertheless.”

This series of news articles is part of the Wastewater Management and Sanitation Provision in Africa Project, a partnership between the African Development Bank (AfDB), UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and GRID-Arendal. The project is supported by the AfDB through its Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Initiative (funded by the Governments of Burkina Faso, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland), and the Multi-Donor Water Partnership Programme (funded by the Governments of Canada and Denmark). The project is also funded by the Government of Norway and UNEP, and technically supported by GRID-Arendal.