The eThekwini Municipality will host the Reinforcing African Sanitation Operators Partnerships (RASOP) benchmarking visit with stakeholders from Bamako, Yaounde, Yamoussoukro and Daka next week.

RASOP is a project developed and managed by the African Water Association in response to the high levels of urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa which results in increasing urban slum populations which have to be provided with sanitation services.

“The RASOP project is premised on peer-to-peer learning in the area of onsite sanitation and faecal sludge management between cities in Africa,” the municipality explains.

“The peer-to-peer learning is arranged in such a way that the municipalities or sanitation utilities of the five African cities are supervised by similar entities in other African cities,” it adds.

EThekwini Municipality mentors two Anglophone cities namely Kampala in Uganda and Lusaka in Zambia.

The City supervises these countries because of its experience developed in the area of faecal sludge management which has proven to be successful and has resulted in effective improvement of sanitary conditions for the people of eThekwini.