Water supply and sanitation in Egypt
Western donors also have long promoted sector reforms aiming at higher levels of cost recovery and more efficient service provision.
Trucks that empty latrines and septic tanks do not necessarily discharge septage into wastewater treatment plants, but rather dump the content in the environment.
[14] More recent survey data show that hygiene behavior has improved since then at the national level: The rate of open defecation in rural areas declined from 17% in 1990 to less than 1% in 2005.
[22] In 2009, a study by the Ministry of Health showed that drinking water for half a million people in Asiut was unfit for human consumption.
Chlorination systems of wells, which had been installed years ago because high levels of bacteria had been detected in the groundwater, failed for lack of maintenance and have been shut down so that untreated water is not provided to the residents.
According to the Ministry of Environment, "there is a lack of coordination among institutions responsible for monitoring water quality and an absence of a unified system of analysis, techniques and methodologies".
The quality of water improved substantially after the completion of the first 1.2 million cubic meter per day stage of the plant in 1999, but the drain and the lake are still environmentally fragile.
[31] In 2013 a tender was underway to upgrade the entire plant to secondary treatment and to increase its capacity to 1.6 million cubic meters per day with a possible loan funding from EBRD and Egyptian banks as part of a public-private partnership.
With construction beginning in 2019, this wastewater plant treats up to 5 mn cubic meters of Bahr El Baqar basin water daily.
In addition to treating water, the Bahr El Baqar Treatment Plant will irrigate up to 1,400 square km of agricultural land in the Sinai Peninsula.
"[34] An effort to limit microplastics reaching the ocean is underway for wastewater treatment plants in Alexandria, with a €120 million loan from the European Investment Bank.
However, the organizations in charge of operating and maintaining the infrastructure were weak in terms of financial and human resources, especially in provincial Egypt, so that service quality remained poor.
A 1991 USAID report concluded: "These water companies were intended to be autonomous, to generate revenues sufficient to cover operation and maintenance costs and to have flexibility in personnel actions.
Infrastructure continued to fall into disrepair, while the entities in charge of water supply and sewerage systems ran large deficits that were only partly covered through subsidies.
The creation of an "autonomous" regulatory agency for utilities was a standard recommendation made by donors for infrastructure sector reforms in developing countries at that time.
In 2006 the government created a Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) Central Unit in the Ministry of Finance to promote private greenfield investments in infrastructure across various sectors.
The Arab spring temporarily diverted policy attention away from sector reforms, while the financial situation of the Egyptian water utilities deteriorated because of wage increases that were not fully compensated through higher subsidies.
She noted that it was "exceedingly difficult to obtain information about the quality of (...) drinking water" and "there was confusion about where to send complaints" - the Holding Company, the Ministry of Health or the Regulatory Agency.
As of 2012, the Ministry was in the process of elaborating a national strategy based on the policy paper, including several sub-strategies on topics such as tariffs, informal settlement and rural sanitation.
However, the joint venture of Orascom and Aqualia from Spain, a subsidiary of FCC, found itself plagued by currency fluctuations and problems in commissioning the plant.
[51] The Holding Company for Water and Wastewater plans to launch BOTs for seawater desalination on the Red Sea and the Sinai, together with the government's Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) unit that would provide a sovereign guarantee.
The shortfall in revenues is partly made up by government subsidies for investment and operations at the tune of US$2.5bn per year, of which only about 10 percent is financed by external donors.
Based on a tariff of 5 US Cents per m3 and a consumption of 200 liter per capita and day, which is higher than in Central Europe, the monthly water bill of a family of five amounts only to the equivalent of US$1.50.
In poor areas, connection fees are reduced and can be paid in instalments through a revolving fund established by the Holding Company, UNICEF and USAID.
Between 2005 and 2010 Egypt received more than 1bn Euro in external aid for water supply and sanitation, out of which 30% were grants and the remainder soft loans with an average interest rate of 1%.
[64][68] The European Union, France, Germany, the United States and the World Bank are among the most important external cooperation partners in the Egyptian water and sanitation sector in terms of funding.
[71] Germany provides investment finance and technical assistance for projects in Qena and Kafr El Sheikh, as well as for the IWSP (see above), for which KfW is the lead donor.
[73] It also financed technical assistance to the Alexandria General Water Authority (AGWA) through a strategic plan, training and a management information system.
Its main objective is the sustainable improvement of the sanitation and environmental conditions as well as the water quality in the three Delta Governorates of Beheira, Gharbia and Kafr El-Sheikh.
[78] A second phase of the project, extending it to four more governorates (Menoufia and Sharkia in the Delta, Assiut and Sohag in Upper Egypt) was approved in 2011 with a volume of US$200 million.
