The CANEA has organized in collaboration with the ANCB with the financial support of Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) on 19 February 2021 a workshop to sensitize local authorities on the prioritization of hygiene and basic sanitation. The session that was presided buy the Mayor of the municipality of Pèrèrè, Mr. Abdoulaye ALASSANE representing the president of the ANCB raised the importance and benefits of the hygiene and basic sanitation sub-sector and invited mayors to increase investment in this.
The chair of the Non-State Actors' Consultative Framework for Water and Sanitation (CANEA), Mr. André ZOGO who is also the CWP Benin Executive Secretary, recalled the importance for Benin to take up the Hygiene and basic sanitation issues to ensure that the objectives pursued by the project of universal access to drinking water are truly achieved. He warned that "drinking water can be a source of disease if hygiene and sanitation are neglected".
About a year after the start of its advocacy for the creation of Support Fund for the Development of Communes (FADeC) Hygiene and basic sanitation (BHS) window, the ANCB is taking up a new challenge. The new challenge focuses on the prioritization of issues related to BHS in the municipalities. Aware of the low level of resources devoted to the issue in the communal budgets, the umbrella organization of Benin's municipalities has decided to get the local authorities to reverse the situation. The advocacy initiated by ANCB in partnership with CANEA and SWA puts emphasis on the municipalities own involvement in BHS. Since Hygiene and Basic Sanitation is an important issue whose impact on local development is well admitted, it is equally true that its ownership at the central level depends on the commitment of local actors. That is why ANCB and its partners have decided to mobilize the local authorities so that not only a clear budget line is devoted to it, but also and above all that this lines with is sufficiently provided for and executed.
Thus, the members of the ANCB National Office and representatives of the Regional and Departmental Associations of municipalities (AR/AD) were invited for a half-day of exchanges and sharing of experiences and good practices in the field of BHS management.
The mayor of Pèrèrè urged the local authorities to pay more attention to hygiene and sanitation issues because he said, "if water is life, hygiene and sanitation is a matter of dignity".