Water Supply and Water Treatment in Africa: Problems, Technologies, Personnel

African countries, regional groups and the African Union prepare plans of development of water supply and water treatment. However, insufficient financial capacities do not afford necessary funding of economic development programs, including those in the water sector. Low living standards in African countries do not allow to increase tariffs for water supply services that prevents engagement of private investments. Under these conditions, there is dependency of water sector of African countries from donor countries and international organizations, including the World Bank Group. The large number of donors generates a wide range of suppliers of equipment used in African countries. They face a lot of challenges in exploitation of water facilities, because these systems require constant monitoring, periodical change or setting up of broken or outdated equipment, compliance with the conditions of work in order to keep water quality and technically trained staff. Although African markets have various types of systems from mechanical ones to reverse osmosis for industrial, commercial and consumer purposes, different in size and in price, water infrastructure in the majority of African countries is malformed and does not meet contemporary norms and requirements. Introduction of advanced technologies is contained by high costs of equipment and technical maintenance. Africa possesses its own system of training engineering and technical staff in the field of water treatment that suffers from lack of specialists and dependency on foreign funding. Under these conditions, there is a prospect of cooperation between Russia and African countries in water sector, with Russian scientists capable of providing innovative technologies for water supply and water treatment.