The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Operational decision · 1996–2019
Senegal's water affermage let a private operator double the network
Under a 1996 affermage, Senegal kept the pipes while SDE ran operations—access rose from 80% to 98.5%, clients from 241,000 to 809,000.
Sénégalaise des Eaux (SDE)
The solution
Dakar's water service in the early 1990s suffered rationing, leaks and underinvestment; rather than sell the network, Senegal in 1996 signed an affermage: state-owned SONES kept owning and financing assets, while private operator SDE ran production, distribution and billing under performance incentives.
SDE began in April 1996 with 241,167 clients and 80% access; by December 2019 it served 808,956 clients, annual production had grown from 96 billion to over 200 billion litres, and access in the contract area reached 98.5%.
Incentives worked on the network itself: yield—the share of water produced that is billed—rose from 68.2% at takeover to 81.04% in 2017, above France's average of 80%, while bacteriological water quality climbed from 92% to 99.63%.
The turnaround was recognized internationally: SDE was named Water Utility of the Year at African Utility Week 2018, and a World Bank study ranked Dakar first among African capitals for network management efficiency.
Why it worked
- Because SDE's revenue came from billed water, every litre saved from leaks was profit, not charity.
- Keeping assets public preserved investment capacity while exposing operations to private discipline.
- Performance-based contract renewal gave the operator a long horizon to fix the network.
- Measured indicators—access, yield, quality—let both sides see results and adjust.
What can be applied
If a government cannot run a utility, it need not sell it—split ownership from operations and pay the private operator on measured results.
Aftermath
The affermage ran for 23 years; when the contract ended in December 2019, Senegal awarded the new contract to a competitor and SDE challenged the award before the Supreme Court. Its model was already being exported through service contracts in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Saudi Arabia, and its performance data became a reference point for African water reform.
Sources
- Les remerciements de la SDE aux clients et partenaires
- La Sénégalaise des Eaux, de nouveau distinguée par un prix international : le « Water Utility of the Year »
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