10
The News N° 25 - February 2015
AFRICA
FRom one conTinenT To anoTHeR
The National Water Company of Benin
(SONEB)
is managing drinkingwater supply
and sanitation in urban areas all over Benin.
For many years, it has had its own training
center:
theWTC.
All
”SONEB”
employees undergo training
there, especially mechanics in hydraulics,
who are somehow the kingpins of the com-
pany operation: highly versatile, they may
even be required to manage a treatment
facility, or to talk to the customers.
However, there is an urgent need to streng-
then the existing teams of mechanics in
hydraulics, as many retirements are planned
in the coming years.
In this context, ”SONEB”decided, under
a program of support to the sector of
drinking water supply and sanitation
fundedbyGermanCooperation -GIZ, to
ask IOWater to update the training
curriculum to help train these new
teams of mechanics in hydraulics. The
same work was requested for water
supervisors.
A mission to Benin helped describing the
frames of reference of the jobs and skills of
mechanics in hydraulics and supervisors to
effectively integrate the Benin context of
these professions.
IOWater
experts could draft training refe-
rence frames, listing the theoretical and prac-
tical contents to be transmitted to trainees:
two one-year training curricula, including
basic technical skills identified in the field, but
also capacities to build, such as computing,
communicationor even theEnglish language.
4
Benin
Newmechanics in hydraulics at ”SONEB”
Workshop for ”mechanics in hydraulics”
A new phase of the collaboration started in
2012 between
IOWater
and
RandWater
began in 2014:
Rand Water is now a
memberof IOWater’sBoardofDirectors.
Rand Water
supplies drinking water to
12 million customers, including the inhabi-
tants of Johannesburg. The company has
around 3,500 employees.
Capacity building is critical to Rand
Water. In this regard, the Rand Water
Academy (RWA) was created with the
goal of becoming a training center for
water professionals.
The partnership was launched at the
endof the visit in2012of senior officers
of Rand Water to IOWater’s Training
Center in France (NWTC).
Very quickly, under the project of creating the
RWA in Johannesburg, it was decided to
annually sendengineers and technicians tobe
trained at
theNWTC
in Limoges.
A trainingof trainers
took place during the
summersof 2012and2013onvarious topics.
These courses were designed to increase the
knowledge of South African engineers on
chosen topics, but also to familiarize these
trainers to the use of educational units for
practical work.
In 2013,
IOWater
organized a one-week
study tour in France on the management of
changes occurring in water and sanitation
services.
That same year, IOWater provided
support to the definition, design and
startupof the RWA.
Finally, on 25 July 2013,
RandWater
and
IOWater
signed their Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU), which confirmed the
partnership already started.
In 2014, collaboration increased:
8 training courses tookplaceon thepre-
misesof theRWA.
A trainingof trainerswas
also held in France.
RWA
executives visited
the Training Center of
the Gdansk Water
Foundation in Poland,
whichwas initiated
in the 1990s in partnershipwith
IOWater.
4
South Africa
New collaboration phase between IOWater and RandWater
Handing of training certificates
to South African trainees
Workshop for ”water supervisors”
