AFRICARE GHANA LAUNCHES WATER PROJECT (PAGE 42, SEPT 16, 2010)

IN Ghana, less than four out of every 10 people have access to clean water. In terms of sanitation, it is even worse as less than two out of every 10 Ghanaians have access to good sanitation facilities.
The consequences of unsafe water and sanitation are dire, particularly for the poor.
The incidence of water related diseases such as diarrhoea over the last three years was 4-5 per cent and among the top five out-patient department (OPD) morbidity cases in the Wassa Amenfi West District in the Western Region, according to the District Health Management Team (DHMT) records.
These increase child mortality and decrease work productivity, while girls usually miss school due to lack of separate toilets for them and women, and girls spend hours every day walking long distances to fetch water.
According to the World Health Organisation, more than 300 million Africans lack access to clean water and up to half of the continent’s population at any one time suffers from diseases related to unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation.
It is to alleviate some of these problems that Africare Ghana, a charitable organisation, has launched an initiative, known as the “Obama Water Access Sanitation and Hygiene for Health Project” to increase access to safe water and improved sanitation.
The initiative is also aimed at promoting hygiene among the people by working with communities to develop water supply facilities and support the construction of household latrines.
The project will also develop the capacity of schools and communities to manage sanitation facilities while enhancing local participation in community led total sanitation and hygiene programmes.
It is designed as a pilot project to learn lessons that may be used in scaling up to other communities.
Early this year, President Barack Obama of the United States of America made a generous donation of US$ 100,000 to Africare in recognition of Africare’s development work in Africa.
Africare in return decided to use the donation, in partnership with the Wassa Amenfi West District Assembly, the Community Water and Sanitation Agency, the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing, the World Bank and others, to contribute to the development of safe water and sanitation facilities for poor communities in the Wassa Amenfi West District.
This is in fulfilment of President Obama’s pledge and also in recognition of the determination and hard work of the government and people of the Wassa Amenfi West District to improve their hygiene status and quality of life.
Speaking at the launch of the project at Amoaman, a farming community in the Wassa Amenfi West District in the Western Region, the Country Representative of Africare Ghana, Dr Kwasi Ampofo said in addition, Africare was working hard to leverage at least US$1 million under it’s “Ghana Clean Water Challenge Campaign” to scale up the provision of clean water and sanitation facilities to more communities in the district.
He said Africare would wish to work with other stakeholders to implement the project in support of community initiatives and work with them to achieve their goals in water access, sanitation and hygiene for health and to improve their well-being and prosperity.
Dr Ampofo stated that the project would start with three communities and work with them to install water facilities for communities and schools, install latrines for health clinics and schools, and support the construction of household latrines and encourage total sanitation within communities, using the community led total sanitation approaches.
Dr Ampofo said the implementation strategy for the Obama Water Access Sanitation and Hygiene for Health Project centred on community engagement and education to build awareness and promote behaviour change, strengthening of community capacity to develop its own safe water and sanitation infrastructure, and incentives for the adoption of community-led and school-led total sanitation practices.
A Water and Sanitation Specialist of the World Bank, Mr Emmanuel Nkrumah, stated that there was hardly any dispute that water supply and sanitation played a crucial role in socio-economic development of any country.
He said regular water supply and good sanitation, as well as hygiene were fundamental to improved quality of life and were key prerequisite for human and economic development.
He stated that the challenge did not only call for more funding, but also important that it called for alternative approaches and innovations in strategies to ensure sustainability of interventions made.
Mr Nkrumah said although support by the World Bank and other donors had significantly contributed to the steady progress in improving coverage of water supply, reliability of water supply was rather poor partly as a result of inadequate management of the infrastructure, adding “Sanitation continues to lag far behind in coverage”.
The Wassa Amenfi West District Chief Executive, Mr Samuel Victor K. Meisu said education, health, water and sanitation were the main challenges confronting the district assembly.