First and foremost conceive cities as networks 

Each city, however modern it is, is like a grid, a layering of networks, most of which are visible in the urban landscape. Be it for electricity, gas, telecoms, wastewater or stormwater drainage networks: all these functions are directed towards the same goal: guarantee the safety and well-being of city dwellers and make their city a better place to live in.

The first feature of a city in the South: weak public management

The most common aspects of a city in the “North”, which we take for granted – as they have been part of the daily lives of its residents for a very long time – either still do not exist or are extremely rare in cities in the “South”. Ordinary urban objects come to mind, for example, street signs, drain covers, street lights, paved roads, which respectively contribute to addressing and identifying places and their residents, preserving hygiene and public health, and the movement of persons and consumer goods. These are all missions for which local authorities are responsible.

Southern cities generally stand out for the lack of such networks, which are developed and operate efficiently. At best, you can see some points in common, such as phone networks, roads, streets, but with no asphalt, no paving stones and they are flood-prone because the pipe systems are not functional or are saturated; neighborhoods and dwellings have no signs, there is a lack of street lighting, etc.  

Land registers and signage: prerequisites for urban management

In Paris, we take the street signs for granted. However, they do not exist in most cities and capitals in developing countries. Yet without such signage, it is impossible to send mail or for tax statements to be sent, taxes to be collected properly, for which there is ultimately no system to make people pay. This situation is one of the symptoms of the lack of fully operational land registration systems in these countries, for example, to manage land units and the history of land plots.
In such conditions, it is difficult or even impossible to know exactly who is living in such and such a place, or how many households, children, elderly or disabled people live there. It is equally impossible to determine who is the owner or tenant of the place in question and therefore, for example, to be able to collect sales taxes. 

Achieve an effective combination of policy, administration and technical aspects

While addressing is important, it is not enough to paint a number on a door, as we see in many African countries, hoping it will be sufficient to solve the problem. The process to organize the life of the city, its management and its development is much more complex and takes much longer to implement. The entire management in public administration needs to be organized and overhauled, as this is the instrument which allows the State to take stock, know what is happening in real time, and manage the city in the long term. Street signs are a sort of symbol of urban management, which covers most of the services that city dwellers benefit from in their daily lives.

The main challenge for these countries and development aid institutions, including AFD, is to know how to create all these essential urban networks, set them up, finance both the investment in this infrastructure and implement adequate services to maintain them.
For example, without sanitation networks, in Southern cities all the wastewater is discharged into the street, parks and natural waterways. The challenge may not be to achieve a result as close as possible to Paris, which is a very modern city, but at the minimum to have essential services to prevent waste and wastewater from staying in houses or polluting rivers, keep streets passable and allow city dwellers to have access to drinking water.

The Chalon neighborhood: an example of successful urbanization

The transformation of this Parisian neighborhood, which was for a long time left to its poverty, shows how there is no predefined technique or model able to create a modern, pleasant and well-managed city. You have to think simultaneously of the equipment, housing, the networks I mentioned before, the type of activities that you want to develop there (offices, a business center, or a green space for example) and, especially, connect all this up with the transport links. All these projects require comprehensive political thinking in the sense of “city management”, which must lead to public policies that need to be coherent and complementary within a given area. The other aspect is the way in which these operations are conducted, first by taking the duration into account: indeed, we are talking about projects for which the financing and works are spread over 20 or 25 years. In this respect, you need to ensure that you will stay the course thanks to institutions that are politically, technically and financially strong enough to lead major projects.

“The city finances the city”, as the operation is financed gradually by the gains made by the local authority when it sells the land that it bought cheaply in the poor neighborhoods after having developed them. These gains finance the equipment and, at the end of the day, urban operations are self-financed over a period of 20 years or more. This principle of development generally does not exist in the countries where AFD operates. This is a real shortcoming, which goes well beyond the financial constraint proper – because a small cash advance would be sufficient to buy land. What is even more fundamental is the issue of how local authorities operate and their ability to lead these projects and, from a technical perspective, to have sufficient human resources to design and implement a development policy like in the Chalon neighborhood. 
 
How to proceed, following the “City finances the city” principle

What happens in practice? The public authority starts by taking possession of the rundown neighborhoods via expropriations, compulsory purchase or simply by acquisition. Once the public authority has taken ownership of the land, it can demolish, rebuild, develop and redevelop as it sees fit in order to create new neighborhoods, which will continue to develop in a more or less positive way depending on the choices that have been made.
Although cities everywhere are made up of the same things, they do not operate in the same way.

The reason partly relates to financing. The Mayor of Paris has €4,000 per year and per resident to maintain and invest. The Mayor of Ouagadougou (municipality with 1,300,000 residents) has €20 per year and per resident. By way of comparison, the budget of this city, the capital of Burkina Faso, is half the budget of the town of Rodez, which has 25,000 residents. The Mayor of Lomé will have €8 to €10 per year and per resident, the mayor of a small town in Benin will have half a euro per year and per resident…...
The challenge therefore obviously lies in increasing financing and the capacity for a local authority to have sufficient financing available to invest in the area under its jurisdiction and maintain it. There is a colossal gap today between cities in the North and cities in the South and our challenge is to manage to bridge it.

This Franco-German cofinancing aims to develop the urban water sector in Southern Sudan.

It comes just 3 months after the self-determination referendum, which was held in January 2011 and will lead to the official creation of the 54^th African State (and 193^rd State in the world) on 9 July 2011.

Latrines recently built in a primary school

Training in how to measure the groundwater level

Everything needs to be rebuilt in this fragile State, which is just emerging (since the 2005 peace agreements) from a civil war that lasted over 20 years, particularly in the field of basic infrastructure. 

Only 5% of the population has access to sanitation

The water and sanitation sector is no exception: it is estimated that only 29% of the population has access to drinking water and only 5% to sanitation. In cities, access to drinking water is even worse: practically none of the networks are working and the access rate is estimated at 14%. These statistics mean that Southern Sudan ranks the lowest worldwide.

This alarming situation is likely to be exacerbated further by migratory flows, with on the one hand a strong rural exodus (80% of the population are still rural dwellers), and on the other hand the return of refugees and internally displaced persons, which could gather pace after the creation of the new State.

Several types of water vending kiosks will be tested to determine which one is the best suited to the situation in Southern Sudan 

Institutional progress has, however, been observed since the peace agreements: a sectoral policy has been implemented since 2009, a Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation (MWRI) now coordinates the sector, an Urban Water Corporation has been set up, etc.

But these reforms have yet to be fully achieved and the lack of capacity of national actors makes it difficult to implement them.

Capacity building is a priority in this context and is consequently a core aspect of this project, which is based on 4 components:

1. Strengthening the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation (MWRI)
2. Reforming the Southern Sudan Urban Water Corporation (SSUWC)
3. Implementing pilot measures in the city of Yei
4. Capacity building for stakeholders in the water sector

The strategic choice of the city of Yei

• It is located in the south of Southern Sudan and should be spared from the different levels of conflict likely to occur with the separation from the North,
• It is at the crossroads of roads linking the country up with Uganda and DRC and has a potential to become a major secondary center. This will limit migrant flows towards the capital Juba.
   

In Yei, the project will create a primary distribution network, roughly twenty water vending kiosks, boreholes, water towers, public latrines (particularly in schools), hygiene promotion campaigns, a wastewater and sludge treatment basin… These facilities will directly benefit 20 000 residents and improve their living conditions.

The challenge is, however, much broader: Yei will in reality be a “testing center” for the implementation of the national water policy. An operator will be established there to manage operating and, for the first time in Southern Sudan, tariffs will be set with the aim of covering operating costs in order to ensure the service is sustainable.

A national water sector training center will also be set up.

These pilot measures will build the capacities of stakeholders at all levels (national, regional and local), taking into account the decentralization laws. They will apply to administrations just as much as to the private sector (small traders, electrical engineers, electricians…).

In the photo, First row: Didier GREBERT, AFD – Christian Bader, French Consul General – Manfred Van Eckert, GiZ’s representative in Southern Sudan
Second row: Isaac Liabwel, Secretary General of the Southern Sudan Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation – Norbert Hagen, head of GIZ’s Urban Water Program.