Rémi Bourgarel has been working for more than 25 years in the water and essential services sector, specialising in Africa and the Middle East for the Veolia Group, where he was in charge of African development until mid-2019.
In particular, he managed the Société d'Exploitation des Eaux du Niger, in the service of the development of access to water and contributed to the implementation of structuring partnerships with various international financial institutions for a massive development of this essential service, in urban and semi-urban areas, as well as in rural areas in Niger; worked in Gabon, where it helped to adapt a classic model of public-private partnership for the development of access to these services in a context of rapid and uncontrolled urbanization; and also in the Middle East, where it intervened on issues of water governance in countries where this resource is scarce and disputed. He also managed the Société des Eaux de Marseille.
He created and now manages a structure "Services for Environment", a vehicle for co-developing projects in Africa in the fields of essential services with high environmental and social impacts.
Rémi Bourgarel is a Supelec engineer; he has lived for a long time in Africa and the Middle East.