The infrastructure of the capital city of Bangui and its surrounding urban area has been in a critical state. The situation was specifically examined in relation to the general context of urban infrastructures and the fields of water and electricity. The initial and principal objective of the assignment was to provide Technical Assistance in order to improve the water and electricity infrastructure (technical and non-technical leakages) in the area.

The specific objective of the assignment was to prepare the implementation of a dedicated structure (private status) and commercialisation contract in order to completely reduce - within a specific timeframe - all the technical and non-technical leakages from the water and electricity supply networks. The deliverables included the preparation of:

• Measures to be taken within the framework of the structure

• Key expert profiles for the structure

• Preliminary work programme

• Overall budget and its annual distribution

• Cooperation with existing programmes and projects

• Assessment of existing equipment and estimation of purchase needs

• Beforehand, an overall assessment was carried out in order to propose measures for avoiding a complete breakdown of the power system, and a chronic decrease in the quality of the water networks - mainly at the distribution level.

In addition to the main components of the study, the general infrastructure framework was considered, and this in turn constituted the baseline for the project.