DRINKING WATER AND

SANITATION

MANAGEMENT IN

OVERSEAS FRANCE

Communication to the Senate Finance Committee

March 2025

2

Executive Summary

The right to reliable sanitation and drinking water services is a vital issue for all

populations, and is particularly acute in overseas territories where it is respected very

unevenly. The proliferation of difficulties in the 2010s, characterised by a collapse in the quality

of certain services leading to water cuts more than every other day, in an environment prone

to climatic disasters and recurrent social crises, led the State authorities to decide to

implement, from 2016, a so-called ‘

Eau DOM’ plan

(Pedom), intended to provide particular

support to the five overseas

regions

and

departments

(Guadeloupe, French Guiana,

Martinique, Mayotte, Reunion), as well as the overseas

collectivity of Saint Martin

. The

investigation into the implementation of this plan, eight years after its launch, and at a time

when the underlying issues remain more pressing than ever, is an opportunity to take stock of

both the State's methods of intervention and the current situation regarding the management

of this essential public service in the six territories concerned.

A stronger commitment from the State through a contractual approach

involving all stakeholders

The

Pedom

demonstrates a willingness to provide national support to local authorities

experiencing significant difficulties in the management of their water and sanitation services.

Interministerial in nature, it commits in particular to bringing together, at both the national and

local levels, ministerial departments, prefectures, technical services responsible for water and

the environment, health authorities, local authorities, as well as the various funding

organisations - the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB),

Banque des Territoires

(BDT), French

Development Agency (AFD) - where each had previously acted in an uncoordinated manner.

It represents a major shift in approach, based on an integrated and highly demanding system

for local authorities as well as State departments and agencies, within the framework of multi-

year ‘progress contracts’ signed locally, which make funding conditional on the fulfilment of

these contractual commitments.

The

Pedom

also provides a national and cross-disciplinary vision, the ability to mobilise

political authorities, and shared tools designed and managed by a central team. This team has

grown over the years, with the appointment of a full-time coordinator who has set a new

dynamic in motion. However, national coordination must be reinforced to enhance efficiency

and pooling of resources, without replacing local authorities.

The national financial support mobilised by

Pedom

is still based on various State budget

lines and on pre-existing loan offers from public funding bodies, without the creation of new

tools. The approach of the

Pedom

relies on significant technical support as a lever for

implementing projects, enabling the necessary funds to be mobilised more effectively and

more efficiently for the very significant investments to be made. The cost of all the projects

included in the

Pedom

contracts for the six territories concerned amounts to €2.3 billion, of

which €1.5 billion is for drinking water and €0.8 billion for sanitation. Since 2016, the

deployment of national resources for

Pedom

projects has progressed slowly and unevenly

across the

regions

, with persistent difficulty in committing the available funding. To date, the

Pedom

has committed €889 million in funding, including €410 million in State subsidies (of

which €230 million had been used by the end of 2024) and €479 million in loans. The recovery

plan period saw an increase in funding, thanks to exceptional resources provided by the French

Office for Biodiversity, followed by a genuine rise in the use of allocated funds — a possible

sign of the strategy’s effectiveness. As of 2024, the territories concerned can also benefit from

the extension of a national equalisation scheme for water and sanitation: the inter-basin

solidarity fund for overseas territories, which in 2024 amounted to €35 million per year

3

compared with €20 million previously, and is set to increase to €55 million from 2025. At the

end of the period, annual State subsidies, across all programmes, will have tripled, rising from

€15 million to more than €45 million.

“Progress contracts” based on an incomplete conditionality framework

and limited by governance challenges

At the regional level, the implementation of the

Pedom

programme faces various

obstacles. The first relates to its methodology, based on the management of local progress

contracts. This integrated partnership approach is based on the ambitious and laudable

principle of making State funding and that of its agencies conditional on the fulfilment of specific

commitments by the partners. However, the fact that this conditionality involves the reporting

of numerous very precise technical indicators has reduced its scope these indicators have

been poorly fulfilled and the principle of conditionality has not been effectively enforced. In

order for it to become effective, it must be made more strategic and more easily objectifiable,

while continuing to ensure that indicators are monitored by the technical services.

The second stumbling block in the implementation of the plan is that of local governance,

characterised by recurrent crises and difficulties, against a backdrop of major reorganisations

of responsibilities: implementation of the law on the new territorial organisation of the Republic

(

NOTRé

) transferring responsibility for ‘drinking water and sanitation’ from

municipalities

to

inter-municipal

associations, with the creation of departmental unions in some areas. In light

of the findings of poor governance and highly diverse territorial structures, the financial courts

recommend a pragmatic, case-by-case approach rather than a one-size-fits-all model, while

emphasising the need to strengthen oversight of private entities entrusted with water and

sanitation public services. They suggest giving users and citizens a greater role in the

monitoring and governance of these essential services.

The difficulties faced by the State in providing effective support for

technical capacity and service governance

The

Pedom

, launched and run by the State, also raises the question of the State's

position in relation to the local authorities responsible for drinking water and sanitation services.

The local authorities, which have historically been responsible, have long been supported or

even supplemented by the State's territorial services, whose agricultural departments provided

technical expertise and project management assistance for drinking water and sanitation

networks in the overseas territories. The end of the engineering work carried out by the State

departments, combined locally with difficulties in governance and political leadership, led to

the overseas communities being drained of both funding and technical expertise, partly

explaining, since the end of the 1990s, a long period of underinvestment and neglect on their

part in the maintenance of the networks.

At the time the

Pedom

was launched, all signatories recognised the lack of technical

expertise on the part of the local authorities. The new system rightly makes strengthening

technical capacity a major priority. The financial courts' investigation examines in detail the

technical support and assistance provided by the State. The financial courts highlight that the

State no longer has the in-house technical capacity it once provided to local authorities, and

have examined the various alternative solutions proposed — notably, costly and poorly

targeted technical assistance. These approaches would benefit from a proper feedback and

evaluation process to improve their effectiveness. Finally, it highlights the need for greater

investment in the initial and continuing training of local drinking water and sanitation

professionals.

The role of the State in the governance of water and sanitation services is also being

questioned, as the increasing number of crises in certain

regions

(Guadeloupe, Mayotte and now

4

Martinique) is occasionally leading prefects and

State departments

to take back control of this

decentralised public service. While these emergency interventions appear relevant and justified,

the

Pedom’s

medium-term approach focuses on restoring full responsibility to the competent

local authorities, within a contractual framework that respects the role of each party. This

approach, of maintaining strong support for the technical capabilities of the authorities

concerned, appears relevant.

Restoring financial equilibrium by adapting and localising practices?

Analysis of the implementation of the

Pedom

highlights the very specific characteristics

of overseas France compared to mainland France in terms of water and sanitation policies. In

addition to unconventional governance, characterised by the predominant role of the State

(historically or more recently due to the failure of local systems and the crises they face),

technical, regulatory and financial issues also differ from national standards.

The investigation highlights the unsuitability of a number of mechanisms and rules, both

technical and legal, with regard to overseas contexts, for which local experiments, territorial

innovations or specific derogations may constitute suitable responses. For example, with

regard to sanitation, the experimentation of individual or semi-collective treatment methods,

although deviating from national and European standards, would appear to be an worthwhile

avenue for the development of a wastewater treatment system in the most disadvantaged

areas of Mayotte or French Guiana, capable of guaranteeing the health of inhabitants.

Similarly, the increasing scarcity and difficulty of access to drinking water in certain sectors

calls for the development of alternative resources such as rainwater or innovative filtration

systems.

The financial jurisdictions consider that the

Pedom

national coordination mechanism

constitutes a relevant framework for promoting and regulating this type of approach.

The funding model for water and sanitation services in the overseas territories also needs

to be adapted to local contexts. The principle that ‘water pays for water’, whereby local user

fees finance the service, applies in overseas territories as elsewhere. However, it is more

challenging to implement in the overseas territories. Charges and additional costs weigh more

heavily on water and sanitation services than in the rest of the country: specific geophysical

factors (unevenly distributed resources, seismic risks), urban development patterns

(dispersed, informal housing) and climatic conditions (high variations in water availability,

violent winds, rising saline water) structurally increase the cost of overseas networks. Extreme

events, such as

Hurricane Irma

, which devastated Saint Martin in September 2017, or

Cyclone

Chido

in Mayotte in December 2024, generate immeasurable costs for local authorities. The

issue of additional construction costs also applies to water and sanitation networks as well as

to all overseas infrastructure. At the same time, the population's capacity to contribute

financially is lower. The prices charged for drinking water and sanitation, despite levels of

subsidisation, are on average much higher there and place a greater burden on household

budgets: the average share of a water bill for a vulnerable household

1

, which is 1.4 % of its

income in mainland France, ranges from 3 % in Reunion to 6.2 % in French Guiana and up to

25 % in Mayotte. This may partly explain the very low collection rates. A vicious circle can be

triggered whereby failure to pay bills leads to a lack of service, which accentuates mistrust and

refusal to pay.

The funding provided by the

Pedom

is necessary to make the investments, the need for

which has been assessed and objectified by the progress contracts. However, the financial

courts believe that local authorities must be able to guarantee their share of self-financing and

ensure the operation required for the sustainability of these services. The investigation

examines the specific challenges these territories face in pricing and collecting payments for

services, which appear to be key to restoring financial balance. It finds that these areas are

1

Households in the 2nd income decile. See Appendix 10.

5

not sufficiently prioritised, either by local authorities or by the State’s support mechanisms, and

recommends greater mobilisation of the

Pedom

to ensure lasting financial recovery.

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Recommendations

1.

Strengthen the principle of funding being conditional on results, through simplified roadmaps

with strategic indicators (

ministry of ecological transition, energy, climate and risk prevention,

ministry of overseas territories, ministry of health and access to care - 2025

) **

2.

Strengthen the oversight capacities of organising authorities over their service providers and

delegated operators, by increasing resources for training and legal support, and by reinforcing

legal compliance checks at the prefecture level (

ministry of ecological transition, energy,

climate and risk prevention, ministry of overseas territories - 2025

) *

3.

Integrate into the national recommendations of the ‘

Eau DOM’ plan

the conditions for taking

users into account (training, pooling of experience) and insert into each progress contract

provisions relating to residents’ needs, access to information, and their involvement in project

governance (

ministry of ecological transition, energy, climate and risk prevention, ministry of

overseas territories - 2025

) **

4.

Organise feedback on the implementation of technical support mechanisms, simplify their

recruitment procedures, prioritise their full integration within the host services (State or local

authority), and do not rule out directly strengthening the services of the Environment, Planning

and Housing Directorates (DEAL) (

ministry of ecological transition, energy, climate and risk

prevention, ministry of overseas territories, French development Agency (AFD) - 2025

) *

5.

Promote and support experimentation, research and the sharing of experiences on technical

innovations, as well as solutions based on systems specifically adapted to overseas contexts

(

ministry of ecological transition, energy, climate and risk prevention, ministry of overseas

territories, ministry of health and access to care - 2025

) **

6.

Fully utilise the possibilities offered by the legislative and regulatory framework to adapt

administrative procedures to the constraints and characteristics of the overseas

departments

and

regions

(DROM) and Saint-Martin (

ministry of ecological transition, energy, climate and

risk prevention, ministry of overseas territories, ministry of health and access to care - 2025

) *

7.

In conjunction with local authorities and the services of the Directorate General of Public

Finances (DGFiP), integrate support for work on pricing, management of unpaid bills and

invoice collection into the management of the

Pedom

(

ministry of ecological transition, energy,

climate and risk prevention - 2025

) *

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8.

Strengthen the national management of the

Pedom

programme to enable it to continue and

build on the momentum already gained, and to better integrate the issues of legal, technical

and financial support (

Ministry of Ecological Transition, Energy, Climate and Risk Prevention,

Ministry of Overseas Territories, Ministry of Health and Access to Care - 2025

) **

Note: To facilitate monitoring, the financial courts divide their recommendations into two

main categories — those relating to management (*) and those concerning the development,

implementation, and outcomes of public policies (**).