USAID Teams with Coca-Cola to Help Improve Village Water and Sanitation

USAID's Director inaugurates Water Project

USAID Senegal Mission Director Henderson Patrick (right) with Coca-Cola representative Don Dussey, test a hand-washing device at the launch of new sanitation project under an alliance with the Coca-Cola company. Photo: USAID/Aaron Brownell

Ziguinchor, December 14, 2011 - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), in collaboration with the Coca Cola Company, has launched a second phase of a Water and Development Alliance (WADA) that promotes "Community Led Total Sanitation" through the building and reconstructing wells and latrines, and provision of hygiene awareness education.

Established in 2007, the unique partnership between USAID and Coca Cola seeks to meet critical water and sanitation needs in some of the most underserved regions of Senegal. This phase, coined WADA II, will intervene at 108 sites in the Ziguinchor, Sédhiou, and Kolda districts in conflict-affected region of the Casamance in the country’s south, and it is projected to benefit 32,400 people.

During the course of the project, USAID will build more than 100 water points equipped with pumps serving more than 15,000 people, 425 family latrines, and three blocks of school latrines in each region. They will s rehabilitate 2,500 latrines, and organize community training courses on good hygiene practices.

"I am convinced that improved access to reliable water and sanitation systems will inspire villagers to be more aware of good hygiene as an important health issue," USAID Mission Director Henderson Patrick said.

WADA will be implemented by the USAID/PEPAM project, a key partner in the Agency’s water and sanitation portfolio in Senegal. Over the next two years, USAID and Coca Cola will share the $1.3 million cost of the activities, which are projected to be complete by March 2013.

"This project now in its second year of implementation is just one part of Coca Cola’s long term investment in Senegal," Don Dussey, the company’s spokesman for the West African region, said at a project launch.

The smaller first phase of the WADA project covering Senegal’s Tambacounda region resulted in the construction or rehabilitation of 20 community wells to the benefit of more than 4,000 people. The more ambitious second phase focuses on three districts of Senegal with the statistically lowest access to clean water and modern sanitation in the country.

Since 2005, the American people though USAID and Coca-Cola have invested nearly $31 million in WADA projects to improve access to potable water improve sanitation, and safeguard ecosystems in 23 countries across the world.