SPECIAL FEATURE
PHOTO: erlucho/ Shutterstock.com
AND THE OPEC FUND
Senegal DAKAR'S “ZONE SOLEIL” SANITATION PROJECT
Approved: March 2014 Completed: May 2019
Total project cost: US$19 million OPEC Fund financing: US$7 million
Courtesy of Beatriz Calzada Olvera
long coastline and relatively modern ports, making it much easier to export minerals compared to many African countries. Extraction and processing are very energy intensive and developing countries often struggle with maintaining a reliable and cost-effective energy system. Mining companies themselves are beginning to address this. “One of the things that we’re starting to see companies do is to essentially develop their own energy infrastructure,” said CSIS’s Gracelin Baskaran “And we see this in Namibia. There is a company that put in its own solar infrastructure (B2Gold). We’ve seen that in South Africa the majority of companies are now building their own renewable energy capacity.” Baskaran, who contributed to the World Bank’s “Africa’s Resource Future” report, added that water is another resource that mineral-rich countries like Namibia struggle to find a reliable supply. Namibia, for one, recently built its first ever solar-powered desalination plant. As the deadline rapidly approaches for when the world must manage the green transition in order to save itself, the continent once known for its gold now has a golden opportunity in providing that transition with the raw materials it needs. The path out of poverty can be found under the very feet of the people that need it the most and African countries have the chance to rewrite their development stories and reverse the resource curse.
If we compare Latin American countries with Africa, you still have the developing country story happening in both cases.
Beatriz Calzada Olvera, Erasmus University
T he project improves the sanitation situation in the southeastern area of the Department of Pikine, a suburb of the capital city Dakar. Child mortality, maternal death, malaria and sexually transmitted infections represent the main medical health problems in Senegal. By protecting the targeted area from flooding the risks of epidemics caused by stagnant water and swamps were reduced, supporting the reduction of morbidity of waterborne diseases by at least 50 percent. The project surpassed the expected rate for the implementation of works. It delivered a 31.4 km underground sewage network, the construction of a 2 km network of sewage transmission pipes and 2,760 house connections. At least 64,000 people will have benefited by 2025 and the quality of life will improve as the risks from malaria and cholera are minimized.
infrastructure development front that sets African countries apart, said Beatriz Calzada Olvera, an economics researcher and lecturer at the Erasmus University Rotterdam – Institute for Housing and Urban Development and an affiliated researcher at UNU-MERIT. “If we compare, for instance, Latin American countries with Africa, you still have the developing country story happening in both cases,” she said. “There are a lot of differences still, even if they are developing countries in terms of infrastructure, where you would see perhaps the most obvious difference.” Chile, Calzada Olvera mentions, is a good example of this difference. The country is known for its rich lithium deposits and has the advantage of a
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