Interdisciplinary project on water and sanitation was performed in Burkina Faso from 2010 to 2015. The title of the project was “Development of sustainable water and sanitation systems in the African Sahel region”, and the project was supported by SATREPS (JST and JICA) and collaborated with International Institute of Water and Sanitation (2iE). The main purpose of the project was to develop and demonstrate the new system of water and sanitation based on the concept of “do not mix” and “do not collect” water and wastewater. In the project, we have proposed the following concept that the water and sanitation system is not a technical system, but it is characterized comprehensive system which includes functions for institutional design, finances and human resources development. The project proposed several element technologies for sanitation which includes composting toilet; gray water reclamation unit; urine recovery unit; and agricultural technologies for effective uses of compost and urine and salt management of soil. The project also proposed the business model for installation of the system. New water and sanitation system tried in Burkina Faso will be an adequate system not only for the developing countries, and the proposed system might be considered to indicate the future direction of water and sanitation system.

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On-site resource oriented sanitation system is one of expectable concepts to address a protection of water resources in developing countries due to low installation cost and resource recovery from human excretes. The present study investigated fates of indicators and pathogens originated from greywater and compost in soil to assess microbial risks when the greywater and compost are reused. Compost and greywater obtained from pilots in Burkina Faso were amended in experimental field with lettuce cultivation and the fate of pathogens in the soil was measured. The results suggested that (i) bacterial fates in compost reuse were fitted to log normal linier and those in greywater were maintained in field soil (ii) the bacterial end-off kinetics in Soudano-Sahelian climate were more rapid than that of reference values. (iii) the reduction of E. coli and Salmonella in the present condition was significantly different but that of Salmonella and Enterococci had no difference. (iv) effect of contaminated soil on annual risk probability was lower than direct handling of greywater and compost but not negligible. The present assessment also suggested that presented current model were required further technical improvement from the view of the biological risks.

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Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso, is located in dry savanna and the issue of water scarcity is of particular concern since water shortage affects the local economy. Treated wastewater from treatment plants can be reused for irrigation. Currently, stabilization ponds are widely used in Ouagadougou, however, the effluent could adversely affect crop production due to low water quality, especially during the dry season. Therefore advanced pond systems are required. This study focuses on wastewater management in urban areas, and discusses the application of high-rate algal ponds (HRAPs) to treated wastewater reuse for agricultural irrigation. Compared with conventional stabilization ponds, HRAPs indicated a lower risk of microbial pathogen contaminants in treated water and higher removal efficiency of nutrients from wastewater. When the effluent from stabilization ponds and HRAPs were used as irrigation water, the estimated yields of tomato production were expected to be 10,208 t and 17,488 t, respectively. Since HRAPs have the advantage of a significantly shorter HRT compared to stabilization ponds, evaporation loss is reduced. Thus, when introducing sewage treatment, it is necessary to consider not only the impact of effluent on the environment, but also the value of irrigation water.

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This study discusses the possibility of a better management of sanitation project and the business model based on community participation in rural Burkina Faso. The case study was carried out based on the local residents’ economic and educational situations as well as their experiences of community-based organizational activities. This paper is focusing on the relationship patterns among their income, educational backgrounds, and participants’ experiences of community activities. Survey results show that people who have no primary education but have literacy education earn higher income than those with primary education. With regard to experience of community-based organizational activities, it has no relationship to both educational backgrounds and income levels. However, the incomes of those who have an experience of externally funded project or microfinance are higher than those who do not have the experience. For a success of sanitation project, a mechanism should be put in place to enable local residents appreciate the potential economic effects of the sanitation project through their interaction with external stakeholders. In order to create additional motivation for participants, it would be also effective to incorporate some literacy education services into the sanitation project for the purpose of income improvement. This study suggests a new approach for the success of the sanitation project. The local residents’ participation in externally funded project with enhancement of literacy skills leads to an improvement of both sanitation and income.

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In Burkina Faso, the rights to land utilization and distribution have been generally defined by the traditional “first occupant” rule. New comers have been given rights to land utilization from the first occupant. But this rule is now changing because of many factors which are recently emerging such as administrative, legal and economic system changes, land nationalization, population growth, desertification and diminishing pasture land, urbanization, modernization, globalization, social structural changes, mentality changes, commercialization, and so on. Many small farmers are obliged to cope with this new situation. This study is composed of three parts: first we briefly overview traditional rules in Burkina Faso regarding land utilization; then recent situations are described in two ways: legal changes, and observations and perceptions expressed by our interviewees; and finally we present one of our case studies conducted in a Mossi village in the province of Plateau Central as an example of changes occurred in production and consumption systems at a large household: a way how a polygamy family shifted from a “collective” to an “individual” system?

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This paper is aimed at verifying the change of historical phases to overcome modernization, through the process of African peasants’ participation in policy-making of integrated water resource management. To do that, it is important to criticize modern values like “rationality” and “efficiency” in order to explain why African peasants were marginalized from the political power during the colonization and authoritarian regime. And modern phenomena will be compared with postmodern one in regard to the social status of peasants, their availability of new technology and their rights to water. They overcome the dualistic system between modern administrative and traditional society. Some of them manage new technology according to their life style and treat easily it as their daily routine to increase agricultural production. Their application of new technology does not bring them a huge scale of colonial plantation but their life restructuration as social and economic actors. We will see also them using cross-national knowledge and technology to make decision of water resource as political actors. That is a new style of Nation-State under the influence of transnational elements. Without political participation of peasants as stakeholders, we will not be able to keep sustainable water resource management.

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Worldwide, nearly 90% of child deaths due to diarrhea have been attributed to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation, and poor hygiene. Furthermore, in developing countries, 2.5 billion people still lack access to improved sanitation facilities. In a collaborative project between Japan and Burkina Faso (Améli-Eaur Project, 2010–2015), we have installed composting toilets in pilot households in three rural villages near Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso. For local farmers, we have promoted a breakthrough agro-sanitation business model that involves using fertilizer in human excreta form to grow vegetables for sale in the local market. In the next step, we intend to assess the composting toilet’s impact on the local population’s health and quality of life (QOL). We will conduct a comparison survey of households and villages where composting toilets have and have not been installed. The survey will cover the following three topics: (1) Lifestyle and Water Use; (2) Health and Nutrition; and (3) Happiness and Well-Being. We hope to demonstrate that improvements in health and QOL are crucial to the success and sustainability of composting toilet sanitation programs implemented in local West African communities.

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