SANITATION EXPO UNDERWAY IN KASSENA-NANKANA WEST DISTRICT 29th JULY, 2019
A three-day sanitation and business
expo under the auspices of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development
[MLGRD], UNICEF and the Kassena-Nankana West District [KNWD] among other
partners, is underway in the district’s capital, Paga. The Canadian Government
is a major funding source to the expo and its related sanitation and hygiene
interventions across communities in the area.
The Expo will among other
objectives, enhance the skills and capabilities of latrine artisans and
Community Technical Volunteers [CTVs] to deliver efficiently on mass
construction orders for latrines as well as to be able, to construct innovative
household latrines that were easy and comfortable to use. The participants will
also be schooled on how to sort the best available sanitation products and
services on the market, all forming parts of efforts geared at ending open defecation
in the district.
A Section of Participants at Expo |
Kassena-Nankana West District Chef
Executive [DCE], Hon. Gerard Ataogye who addressed the Expo on the theme, “Eliminating Open Defecation: The Role of
the Sanitation Market”, noted that environmental sanitation was of prior
concern to government and policy makers. As a result, the Government of Ghana
had joined forces with UNICEF and other like-minded partners to implement the
broad sanitation programme known as the GoG-UNICEF SanMark. He explained that this
programme comes on the background of past sanitation interventions such as the
Rural Sanitation Module and the Community-Led Total Sanitation [CLTS] intervention
on whose foundation, SanMark was being implemented.
Hon. Ataogye recalled that in 2008,
the MLGRD issued a policy guideline which instructed all Metropolitan,
Municipal and District Assemblies to develop and operationalise district
environmental sanitation action plans but noted that sadly, this did not make
any meaningful impact. He added that at the time, a woeful coverage of only
0.16 percent was recorded for solid waste and 1.7 percent, gained in respect of
liquid waste. He noted however that, an amendment to the same plan in 2010 with
emphasis on the CLTS activities, a lot of remarkable improvements were chalked
by the assemblies in a 2012 roll out of the strategy.
The DCE announced with pride that
his district has had as many as 155 communities declared Open Defecation Free
[ODF] communities out of a total of 263, a feat achieved with support from
UNICEF Ghana, World Vision, Water Aid Ghana and the Community Water &
Sanitation Agency. He also said the Assembly was in effective collaboration
with Zoom Lion Ghana in the collection and disposal of solid waste but appealed
to his constituents to support the efforts saying, “we can only develop as a
district when we change our attitudes towards waste generation and disposal”.
He added that the incidence of diseases would also be curtailed drastically if
the environment was clean at all times thereby saving people money as they will
not fall sick frequently.
Hon. Ataogye also commended President
Nana Addo and his government for the establishment of the Sanitation and Water Ministry
stressing that, this showed a strong commitment by the authorities to focus
particular attention as well as devote resources for the course of sanitation
nationwide. Meanwhile, he also hailed government for instituting programmes
such as the Planting for Food and Jobs programme, the Planting for Export and
Rural Development and NABCO among others saying these are all avenues for
creating jobs for the masses especially, the country’s youth.
A UNICEF Water, Sanitation and
Hygiene [WASH] Consultant in the Upper East Region, Madam Eva Akanchaladey in
her remarks revealed that, there exists a sanitation fund to aid assemblies in
their implementation of the SanMark and its activities and that, the Garu
District got an allocation in recent times. She explained that the fund
disburses interest-free loans to households for the execution of latrine
projects and urged authorities of the Assembly and other stakeholders in the
area, to strive and qualify for the fund in order to hasten their efforts.
Madam Akanchaladey disclosed that
close to 1,047 Community Technical Volunteers have been trained region-wide to
provide direction and expertise for the successful implementation of the
SanMark intervention.
Meanwhile a Business Development
Partner to the intervention Mr. Francis Asodina, in his presentation on
highlights of the Expo and its related activities, revealed that the
Kassena-Nankana West District had a total of 30 trained artisans otherwise
referred to as Toilet Masters. The district whose population as of 2018 was
76,845, also had only two sanitation material suppliers and zero sanitation
businesses.
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