In Antananarivo, Madagascar’s sprawling capital, water does not simply arrive with the turn of a tap. For many residents, it has long meant queues at communal standpipes, unreliable pressure and the daily anxiety of scarcity. Climate shocks, rapid urbanisation and ageing infrastructure have stretched the city’s water systems to breaking point. Yet, quietly and persistently, a different story has been unfolding—one rooted not in quick fixes, but in partnerships, patience and pipes.
At the heart of this transformation is WSUP, working alongside national and local authorities, the state water utility JIRAMA, and sanitation and hygiene service providers. Rather than bypassing public systems, the organisation has embedded itself within them, strengthening institutions that will remain long after donor funding ebbs.
The results are tangible. In Antananarivo, production capacity has been expanded at three water treatment plants, while in the coastal city of Mahajanga, six boreholes have been rehabilitated and brought into service. New hydraulic and monitoring equipment has sharpened operational performance, allowing water managers to see, measure and respond to problems in real time. In a country where infrastructure failures often go unseen until taps run dry, visibility is power.
Perhaps the most striking achievement lies beneath the streets. By supporting JIRAMA to tackle leaks and other physical losses in the network, WSUP has helped save more than six million cubic metres of water, an extraordinary volume in a context where every drop counts. Lost water, once seeping invisibly into the ground, has been turned into a public resource.
JIRAMA fixing leaking pipes in Madagascar.
Those savings have translated directly into access. More than 780 community WASH facilities, water kiosks, laundry blocks, public toilets and integrated water and sanitation blocks, have been installed in neighbourhoods previously beyond the reach of formal services. These are not ad hoc structures, but facilities managed through delegated service agreements aligned with national regulations, embedding accountability and sustainability into everyday operations.
For households able to connect directly, the change is even more profound. Through social water connections, more than 1,900 families now have affordable, direct access to clean water at home. For women and girls in particular, this often means hours reclaimed from water collection, with ripple effects for education, income and dignity.
Water, however, is only half the story. Sanitation has long been the neglected sibling in Madagascar’s urban development, with unsafe toilets and informal emptying practices posing serious public health risks. Here too, WSUP’s approach has been deliberately systemic.
A network of toilet promotion agents, working hand in hand with local authorities, has been established to stimulate demand for hygienic sanitation. Their work goes beyond awareness-raising. Using a market-based model, the agents connect households to affordable toilet installation and rehabilitation services, offering flexible payment options tailored to low-income families. The result is a clear behavioural shift: more than 3,200 households and 63 institutions have invested in improved toilets.
Crucially, this is not charity, but commerce with a social purpose. The programme actively supports small and medium-sized enterprises across the sanitation supply chain, mason groups, local businesses, emptying operators and the faecal sludge treatment plant in Antananarivo. By strengthening these links, sanitation becomes not just a health intervention, but an engine of local economic development.
Jobs are created, skills are retained, and money circulates within communities. In a country where formal employment is scarce, this matters. It also ensures that sanitation services do not collapse once external actors step back.
What emerges from Madagascar is a lesson often lost in global development debates: resilience is built through institutions as much as infrastructure. Pipes and toilets are essential, but so too are contracts, regulations, monitoring systems and trust between partners. WSUP’s work demonstrates that improving urban WASH access is not about circumventing public utilities deemed too weak, but about strengthening them to serve the people they were created for.
As climate change intensifies droughts and floods across the Indian Ocean region, the stakes could not be higher. Urban water systems will face growing pressure, and the poorest will always feel the strain first. Madagascar’s experience suggests that with the right partnerships and a willingness to fix what is already there, scarcity does not have to be destiny.
In the end, the most radical outcome may be the least visible: a city where water flows more reliably, toilets are safer, and systems quietly do their job. In Antananarivo and Mahajanga, that quiet progress is beginning to speak volumes.