The United Nations General Assembly has passed a resolution [1] on 24 July 2013, proposed by the Government of Singapore on "Sanitation for All" and the establishment of November 19th as World Toilet Day [2]. Adopted by consensus, the resolution was co-sponsored by more than 100 countries [3].
The amusement and laughter likely to follow the designation of 19 November as “World Toilet Day” would all be worthwhile if people’s attention was drawn to the fact that 2.5 billion people lacked proper sanitation and 1.1 billion were forced to defecate in the open, Singapore charge d'affaires Mark Neo told the General Assembly [4].
The Government of Ghana has been asked as a key measure of improving access to water, to disseminate the water policy to the majority of Ghanaians, to enhance implementation of the policy.
Head of Policy and Partnership at WaterAid Ghana, Mr Ibrahim Musah, said policy distribution or dissemination by translating it into local languages for the citizenry to understand has not been done.
NLLAP 36 hosted the Global Water Partnership on the theme Water, Climate and Development Programme (WACDEP) for water security and sustainable national development.the event which attracted over 70 participants took place at the Erata Hotel on the 11th of July 2013.
The 35th edition of National Level Learning Alliance Platform,hosted the Ministry of Water Resources Works and Housing (MWRWH) and Plan Consult to share on the theme Gender Mainstreaming: An Assessment of the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Sector in Ghana.This edition took place on the 27th of June 2013 at the Coconut Groove Regency Hotel Accra.
This workshop targets sanitation practitioners that have hands-on experience with the implementation of Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) programmes and projects and aims to bring together professionals working on rural sanitation in West Africa, particularly practitioners, researchers, policy makers, and people from government agencies, donors and media.
“Why bother about WASH technologies? Current discourse is on sustainable service delivery monitoring and governance. Many WASH technologies, such as the India Mark II handpump and the VIP latrine, were successfully adopted and have improved the lives of millions. However, not all promising WASH technologies invented or introduced have provided sustainable services. And most technology does not function all of the time. These are lost opportunities..”. André Olschewski of the Skat Foundation wrote this in his blog post TAF & TIP: Why bother about technologies?.
The Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) has piloted a cutting edge technology that will enable it get real time data on which of its pumps, mechanised boreholes or water systems is providing the desired services to the people of Ghana.
The Acting Director of the Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Naa Lenason Demedeme, says that the 2010 Ghana Compact signed in Washington will be revised, if Ghana really means to attain her 54 per cent Millennium Development goal for sanitation and hygiene by 2015.
Though corruption and the issue of integrity in institutions and among individuals have existed over the years, they have often been spoken of with muffled voices.While people are quick to admit in private that corruption pervades the air, those same people are unwilling to publicly admit that it is an issue that seriously hampers the delivery of services and when in public speak about it with a hush.The reason is that many see it as a very sensitive and delicate issue to be spoken of in public, lest one loses favour with the powers that be or is blacklisted in the award of contracts or be branded as cowards, not being smart, anti-social and ‘enemies of progress’.
The World Bank's Board of Executive Directors has approved a US$155 million International Development Association (IDA) grant to support the Government of Ghana’s efforts to increase access to sanitation and water supply services.
It is also intended for the improvement of the capacity of government agencies to plan and manage natural resources more sustainably. According to a statement from the World Bank, the funds will support two of the Government of Ghana’s priorities: manage natural resources in a sustainable manner and bring improved sanitation and water supply to over 3.6 million people living in and around the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA).
This folder contains the presentations and other documents on the 1st Northern Regional Learning Alliance Platform (NRLAP) that took place at the CWSA Northern Regional office on 5 February 2013.
The 34th NLLAP hosted CONIWAS and four communities of their operation (Nima,LA,Mallam and Teshie) under the theme Community initiatives and impact on WASH services delivery in Ghana: The Community perspective. This edition of the NLLAP took place at the ERATA Hotel in Accra on 14th June 2013.
participants at the just ended Water Integrity Forum (WIF) held in Delft, The Netherlands, together with partners of the forum, have called on governments, the United Nations (UN) and international organisations, the corporate sector and civil society to promote water integrity in their operations.
Maintaining that the costs of inaction are just too high to remain passive, the three-day forum which ended June 7, 2013 stated that although fighting corruption is an essential first step, it is not sufficient to deal with the issues of integrity.
The first ever forum on integrity in the water sector jointly organised by the Water Integrity Network (WIN), UNESCO – IHE Institute for Water Education and the Water Governance Centre (WGC), has found that water shortages in most countries are not due to resource scarcity but due to governance failures.
In a statement issued after a three-day forum on water integrity in Delft, The Netherlands from June 5, 2013 to June 7, 2013, the over 100 participants from 60 organisations cutting across all continents, agreed “Fragmented institutions obstruct accountability in a sector with high investment and aid flows, making it particularly vulnerable to corruption"
The Minister for Water Resources, Works and Housing, Alhaji Collins Dauda, has underscored the need for public-private partnerships to pool resources to solve the water and sanitation problems confronting the nation. He said GH¢443,250,000 was required by the government annually to improve water and sanitation.
Published last week, the final report of the UN High Level Panel (HLP) puts forward recommendations for post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre welcomes this timely and concise report as well as the broad consultation process upon which it was built.
The Triple-S Ghana project has concluded and is sharing a report of a baseline study on the status of rural water facilities in Ghana.The report presents a synthesis of the results of a baseline assessment of the status of service levels, service providers and support functions in three districts in Ghana.
The main objective of the report is to identify strengths and gaps in the provision of sustainable water services at service provision and district levels, particularly in terms of compliance with the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) norms and standards for service levels, and service provider and service authority functions. A set of indicators was developed to assess and monitor sustainable service provision.
The first ever international forum on water integrity dubbed Water Integrity Forum, takes place in Delft, the Netherlands from June 5, 2013 to June 7, 2013.
Co-organised by the Water Integrity Network (WIN), Water Governance Centre (WGC) and UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, the three-day conference is meant to address the need for extending the reach of water integrity action. Specifically, the main objectives of the forum are to take stock of progress in addressing corruption issues in the water sector, share knowledge, approaches and experiences, and build alliances to address integrity challenges in the water sector.
In just two years it will be time for reckoning, when countries belonging to the United Nations gather to compare notes on how they have fared in 25 years since they set targets for themselves with respect to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 1990.
From a high rate of 52 per 100 persons that used shared latrines in Ghana, the figure has dropped to 35 per 100 people, according to the 2011 Multi Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) report.
Chiefs, the media, religious and civil society oganisations in the Volta Region have been called upon to join forces using religious norms to address the incidence of open defecation (OD) in the region.
The 33rd edition of NLLAP hosted IRC Ghana to share their monitoring experience on water services in three districts in Ghana.The event took place at the Erata hotel Accra on the 2nd of May 2013.
The West Africa Regional Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage (HWTS) workshop has opened in Accra, Ghana. The three day workshop, which spans from 6th to 8th May 2013 is hosted by the Government of Ghana with support from UNICEF and the Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage (HWTS) Network under the theme, “Scaling up HWTS -National Policy Environment and Integration Strategies”.
