Water & sanitation

Access to water and sanitation constitute both a need and a basic right for people all over the world. It affects public health, gender equality, the environment and economic processes.
What we do
Access to drinking water and sanitation
Through a partnership with users groups and public operators, we contribute to the construction of infrastructure in view of improving peoples’ access to drinking water. We increase production capacities, develop water distribution networks and improve water quality. As a consequence, water chores, which are usually carried out by women and young girls, become less time consuming.
We help people to improve the local environment, mostly through awareness-raising activities and the installation of equipment (drainage of runoff, evacuation and treatment of waste water, latrines, etc.).
Water & agriculture
We also intervene in the area of water for production aiming to enhance agricultural productivity, to foster the diversification of production and year-round cultivation. To do so, we build infrastructures to store and supply water to the crops and to protect farm land from the risks of flooding (dams, embankments, irrigation networks, wells, etc.). We also assist users with putting in place management systems for these installations.
Capacity development
We provide advice to our partners and strengthen the actors involved in water management – from user-consumers up to the state departments and including water professionals. Governance of the sector, and the planning and the management of infrastructure constitute essential axes of our assistance in view of ensuring sustainable service-delivery and the right to water.
Integrated Water Resources Management
Integrated Water Resources Management is a process which promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources in order to maximise the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital eco-systems (Global Water Partnership, 2000).
To enhance the sustainability of water resources we support the various actors and users to work together through the installation of Integrated Water Resources Management programmes.
Related content

The Gaza Province in Mozambique is a dry region with few water sources. Enabel introduces new approaches that provide rural areas with better access to drinking water.
Water development in rural areas in Mozambique

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, most households struggle to access a correct source of drinking water. But how do you solve this when there is no electricity either? Enabel tackles the problem together with local partners.
Solar panels for drinking water
News & Events

31 January 2023
Ruminant livestock in Mali: Nana Sangaré Dembélé’s story
To alleviate more and more frequent crop failures, Mali and its partner countries have looked for techniques that can be adopted by agro-pastoralists. Fattening is one of the techniques favoured by the interested parties. Nana shares how she is using this technique and how it offers her a more stable income.
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31 January 2023
Domestic biogas, a sustainable energy solution tested in Niger
In Niger, more than 90% of households use wood as fuel for cooking. To help preserve the environment, Enabel is experimenting with the production of domestic biogas with 10 agropastoralist households in the villages of Nawdéo and Rounto Tanda in the Dosso region. Read the story.
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24 January 2023
Result of the Strategic Evaluation TVET & Employment
The results of the Strategic Evaluation in the field of TVET & Employment were presented on Wednesday 21 December to an attentive audience of Enabel colleagues and our external networks (SES, DGD, APEFE, via Don Bosco, Educaidbe, ETM, AUF, E-duForm, …). Recommendations on the effectiveness, relevance, sustainability, equality (gender, inclusion), digitalisation and quality of our monitoring systems were presented and widely discussed.
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24 January 2023
#ClimatEducaid22 conference – Recommendations
On 20 and 21 October 2022, Educaid.be organised a hybrid conference on education and climate change. We could count on the support of the Belgian government, VVOB – education for development, APEFE, Enabel, UNICEF Belgium and IFEF (Institut de la Francophonie pour l’éducation et la Formation)/OIF (Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie) as an external partner.
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23 January 2023
Enabel promotes women entrepreneurship in Africa and the Middle East
At the initiative of Belgium’s Minister of Development Cooperation and Major Cities, Enabel has launched the Awa Prize. With this award, Belgium aims to reward promising initiatives by women entrepreneurs in Africa and the Middle East and promote women’s leadership.
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17 January 2023
Benin: women growing pineapples improve their business skills and household incomes
In Benin, we support a women’s empowerment initiative for women entrepreneurs active in the pineapple value chain, to help them overcome the difficulties surrounding their business and take it to the next level.
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