Following initial contacts in 2009, the two sides signed their partnership agreement in 2011. Since then the City of Erfurt has helped establish a women's centre in Kati, and the Friends of Kati association is now running a children's home there very successfully. Both facilities are based on the strong civic engagement in Erfurt, and are financed mainly through donations. It was also only a matter of time before the Municipality of Kati asked Erfurt for help with one of its most pressing problems. A problem that is prevalent not only in Kati and Mali, but also in many countries of the Global South: Where to put the garbage?
According to the 2009 census, at that time the City of Kati had a population of some 115,000. However, since there is no citizen registration office, the real figure was probably higher (today's population is likely to be around 200,000). There was no regulated waste management, or even any kind of waste collection system like ours. Everybody, including so-called private 'disposal specialists', tipped their garbage on unregulated waste dumps, which extended virtually right across the city area.
Through the partnership project, a simple system was installed that in principle enables regulated waste disposal. For the most part, skip trailers made in Mali and a special vehicle for transporting them are used. The skips are set up in the city districts as collection containers. Once they are full, the waste is taken to intermediate storage facilities. In a second project, the waste is then stored in a landfill outside the city. This measure was backed up by the formation of a municipal waste disposal company, plus training for its employees.