Fondation SUEZ

Marked by commitment and innovation, 2020 was a special year for the NGO Aquassistance

We look back at a special year focusing on innovation and commitment for Aquassistance, the NGO run by current and former employees of SUEZ. The association's volunteers provide skills and equipment to help vulnerable communities all over the world in three fields of expertise: water, sanitation and waste management.
Aquassistance began 2020 with four assignments in Egypt, India, Cameroon and Ivory Coast. At the beginning of March, in view of the expected lockdown and health risks, the association decided to suspend all international assignments. While this measure slowed the association's work, it did not put a complete stop to it: the dozen or so expertise assignments planned in advance of project launches, to assess feasibility, stakeholder capacity, and budgets, were postponed by about a year; ongoing projects, meanwhile, continued and Aquassistance maintained contact with local businesses and service providers to ensure work on the ground progressed. Today, the NGO oversees 72 ongoing projects.

The year provided an ideal opportunity to carry out substantive work on funding requests, particularly in relation to the Oudin-Santini law which enables local authorities and water agencies to allocate up to 1% of their budget to support actions for international cooperation and solidarity. It is as though the COVID-19 pandemic, which really put the spotlight on the vital importance of water and hygiene, sparked a new wave of solidarity and interest in decentralised cooperation.

"We also used 2020 to strengthen our existing partnerships (Action Contre la Faim, Electriciens Sans Frontières, Solidarité Internationale, Première Urgence Internationale, etc.) and set up new ones, with Eau-sans-Frontières Internationale and Fondation Energies pour le Monde (FONDEM), for example," said Philippe Folliasson, Executive Director of Aquassistance.

In 2020, Aquassistance also helped in squats and slums in France, working to prevent Covid-19 clusters

To tackle the pandemic and the risk of clusters in informal settlements not connected to water services (slums, squats, migrant camps, Roma camps, homeless people), French charities and emergency services immediately stepped up. Among them were long-running partners of Aquassistance, the international NGOs Action contre la Faim, Solidarités International and Première Urgence Internationale, some of which were already working with these vulnerable communities in France.

In coordination with local authorities and operators, these organisations immediately called on Aquassistance to provide technical support in connecting the settlements to drinking water services (ramps and taps). Aquassistance "plumbers" helped out in the Essonne, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne departments, at Porte de la Chapelle in Paris, in Nantes, and at the end of the year in Bordeaux. Again, COVID-19 revealed certain populations at risk who, until then, had been neglected, and the pandemic removed a certain number of institutional barriers.

A 2020-2022 strategic plan to meet existing challenges

By reminding us all that the first weapon against disease is hand washing, the pandemic brought home the vital importance of access to water, hygiene and sanitation services for communities in need. In this respect, it also confirms the merits of the three strategic pillars Aquassistance set out in its action plan for 2020-2022:
  • To enhance the impact of our work to benefit vulnerable and underprivileged communities,
  • To build the sustainability and durability of ongoing projects and actions on the ground.

In order to enhance project sustainability, Aquassistance has committed to adopting an approach that involves all local stakeholders from the early stages of a project, with actions to mobilise, raise awareness, and provide training, and with monitoring and impact indicators. Effectively, this means switching from delivering facilities to implementing sustainable change, mainly by strengthening the capacity of local organisations. Over and above obtaining results, it is important to be able to measure impact over time, with reference to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 set by the United Nations.

An NGO focused on innovation

Through the involvement of SUEZ-Water Technologies and Solutions and Electriciens Sans Frontières, Aquassistance began work in 2020 to develop a desalination unit for emergency situations in coastal environments. The desalination unit, which aims to meet people's water needs rapidly, was tested in Guadeloupe in 2021.
Photograph: emergency desalination unit, Guadeloupe.
Aquassistance is also continuing to develop its training opportunities for small-scale operators in emerging countries, thereby helping to build local capacity.

Aquassistance in figures

72 projects underway in 26 countries

  • Africa: 54%
  • Asia and Middle East: 35%
  • Indian Ocean: 8%
  • Caribbean 3%

  • Development: 69%
  • Technical support: 26%
  • Emergency services: 4%
  • Training: 1%
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Keywords

#Aquassistance #Water #Sanitation #Waste #Fondation SUEZ #Cameroon #Egypt #India #Côte d'Ivoire

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