Durban: Implementation of a public-private partnership programme in water and sanitation

The metropolis of Durban (official name: Municipality of eThekwini) aims to become the most liveable city in Africa by 2030. However, today, a large proportion of its 3.5 million inhabitants only have intermittent access to drinking water, mainly due to a major drought that limits the available water resources (South Africa is one of the thirty driest countries in the world).

The French Development Agency has been working with the municipality for the past ten years to finance programmes to secure the water supply. It launched a framework agreement to assist the municipality for more than two years in the implementation of a public-private partnership (PPP) programme led by the municipality's water and sanitation division.

Indeed, in a context of already constrained budgetary resources, amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, of an already significant impact of global warming, and of a very important investment need to increase the drinking water production capacity, public-private partnerships appeared as a privileged way to enable the Municipality to carry out new projects.

The ICEA-Espelia led-consortium was therefore selected to assist the municipality in the implementation of this public-private partnership programme. An initial portfolio of projects has been defined:

• The installation of solar panels on drinking water tanks
• The production of hydroelectricity on high-pressure pipes
• Construction of a desalination unit
• The recovery of biogas from the sludge of wastewater treatment plants
• Extraction of groundwater to diversify resources
• Construction of a treatment unit combining desalination and wastewater treatment

Our intervention takes the form of regular and varied technical assistance depending on the level of progress of the projects:

• Review of feasibility studies and project business plans
• Drafting of tender documents
• Assistance in the award of PPP contracts
• Assistance with negotiations
• Strategic advice
• Drafting of various notes on projects for elected officials

This technical assistance started in the summer of 2020 and will continue until the end of 2022.