DJIBOUTI: the EIB lends €79m for water desalination and sanitation

By Inès Magoum - Published on July 11 2023 / Modified on July 11 2023

After 44 years of activity in East Africa, the European Investment Bank (EIB) is finally responding to the Republic of Djibouti’s request. On 7 July 2023, the European bank granted its first loan of 79 million euros to the Djiboutian government to accelerate several seawater desalination and wastewater treatment projects in the capital Djibouti. The partnership was signed at the EIB’s Luxembourg headquarters by Djibouti’s Minister of the Economy and Finance, Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh, and EIB Vice-President Thomas Östros. The ceremony was attended by Youssouf Aouled Faraf, Chairman of the Office national de l’eau et de l’assainissement de Djibouti (ONEAD), and Aden Mohamed Dileita, Ambassador of the Republic of Djibouti to the European Union (EU) and the Benelux countries.

The EIB is providing the finance as part of the Global Gateway, a European strategy to stimulate smart, clean and secure links in the digital, energy and transport sectors, and to strengthen health, education and research systems worldwide. The loan will be granted through its new 25-year development finance subsidiary EIB Global.

The loan, guaranteed by the European Union’s Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI), will be entrusted to Onead for the implementation of the project to extend the Doraleh seawater desalination plant, which will be inaugurated in March 2021. With a current treatment capacity of 22,500 m3 of water per day, the plant will be capable of producing 45,000 m3 of water per day by the end of the project. A 12 MWp photovoltaic solar power plant will also be built to supply the desalination plant.

This is phase II of the Production de l’eau potable par dessalement et énergie renouvelable (PEPER) project launched in Djibouti in 2017. When completed, the Doraleh seawater desalination plant will supply 555,000 people with drinking water.

As part of the project, Eiffage and Tedagua, the contracting authorities, also built a 5,000 m3 control reservoir and laid 8.5 km of 700 mm diameter pipes linking the plant to the drinking water distribution network in the town of Doraleh. The two companies, French and Spanish respectively, will operate the facilities for five years. The EIB loan will also be used to extend the capacity of the Doraleh, Balbala and Douda wastewater treatment plants.

Inès Magoum