Assessment of the health, safety and dignity of sanitation workers in Banfora, Burkina Faso

in
Burkina Faso, Sanitation
Image: WaterAid/ Basile Ouedraogo

Sanitation workers provide an essential service: emptying and cleaning up human waste. But they often lack recognition and support, or are marginalised. The COVID-19 pandemic, too, has exacerbated their working conditions: longer hours without adequate equipment or training, and no legal protection. We conducted rapid assessments in Burkina Faso, with the aim of understanding the working conditions of sanitation workers, identifying the main challenges they face, and opportunities to overcome them.

The assessment in Burkina Faso, which included the town of Banfora, was carried out between 23 March and 2 April 2021. Using a participatory methodological approach, it involves stakeholders in the sanitation sector at national, regional and local levels. The study team conducted a literature review, particularly to understand legislative and institutional arrangements, interviewed 52 individuals and facilitated two focus groups.

The cities of Bobo-Dioulasso and Ouagadougou have made progress in the professionalisation of sanitation work, but there are still major challenges for emptiers in these towns, and in towns like Banfora. The study identified the following recommendations to overcome Burkina Faso’s key challenges:

  • Consult stakeholders in the sanitation sector who operate across Burkina Faso to learn from their experiences
  • Seize collaboration opportunities with ongoing or recent initiatives
  • Inform the public about the profession of emptying through television or radio broadcasts, training, and the creation of “sanitation champions” in order to eliminate discrimination against pit emptiers
  • Raise awareness and provide pit emptiers with personal protective equipment to ensure hygienic emptying practices
  • Create associations of emptiers in municipalities to improve their organisation and facilitate financial and technical support
  • Formalise the emptying profession through training, certificates and approval recognised and managed by the state
  • Buy land to build faecal sludge unloading, treatment and recovery sites
  • Ensure health monitoring for emptiers by subsidising vaccines, signing agreements with the health district, and formalising a health record to carry out an emptying service

Further reading

Top image: Wendgoundi Sawadogo, a sanitation worker in a latrine, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.