The government of Tunisia and the World Bank have just signed a €113.6 million financing agreement. The loan is intended to improve wastewater management services through public-private partnerships (PPPs) in this North African country.
The financing agreement was signed on 2 June 2023 in the Tunisian capital, Tunis. The value of the loan is €113.6 million, committed by the World Bank as part of the Support Project for Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the sanitation sector in Tunisia.
This initiative aims to improve the quality of effluent management services in the North African country, in particular by developing the capacity of the National Sanitation Office (ONAS) to design, manage, monitor and report on PPP transactions with the private sector. The latest contract of this kind was signed in April 2023 between ONAS and a consortium led by the French group Suez for the management of liquid sanitation in the governorates of Sfax, Gabès, Médenine and Tataouine for a period of 10 years.
Better sanitation services for 500,000 households
“Improving the efficiency of Onas, which was set up in 1974, will also enable it to draw on services provided by private players to improve quality and efficiency, and then to use this performance to benefit its own operations, given that some 360,000 Tunisians are still deprived of adequate sanitation services”, says the World Bank. These people live mainly in rural areas. In urban areas, too, the situation is worrying, with the wastewater generated by more than 1.7 million residents remaining untreated due to inadequate treatment infrastructure. In 2020, 24% of the treatment plants managed by Onas were already operating beyond their hydraulic capacity.
To fill this gap, the project will enable the rehabilitation and upgrading of wastewater management infrastructures in Tunisia, with support for the renovation of equipment, as well as the operation and maintenance of these infrastructures. ONAS will receive technical support from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group.
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The results of the Support Project for Public-Private Partnerships in the Sanitation Sector in Tunisia should be visible in 10 years, the period planned for implementation of the project, “which will directly benefit some two million people in the six governorates, i.e. more than 500,000 households, around half of which are women and girls”, explains Alexandre Arrobbio, the World Bank’s country representative for Tunisia.
Inès Magoum
