Ghana, Accra: Owning Latrines “Makes us Fat” – Local Community

Generally, the main perceived advantages of latrine ownership are proximity/easy access and privacy. For the people of Gozakope in the Dangme West District of the Greater Accra Region however, ownership of household latrines means all of these plus massive improvements in their health status.

Raymond Kotoka Lusu, Chairman, Water and sanitation (WATSAN) Committee of Gozakope, has said the introduction of the Community Led Total sanitation (CLTS) approach, which has led to the construction of latrines in various households in the small settlement, has improved health tremendously.

“We used to have diarrhea and stomach problems but now we are growing fat,” Lusu told members of the Ghana WATSAN Journalists Network (GWJN) who took a field trip to the area recently to know at first hand the state of water sanitation and hygiene issues (WASH), as well as, the state of interventions by the Professional Network Association (ProNet) Accra, a partner of WaterAid Ghana.

About a year ago, ProNet Accra introduced CLTS to the Gozakope community located in the Asutwuare Sub-district of the Dangme West District. Hitherto, the community engaged in “free range” defecation. Men, women and children alike defecated in the bush.

A defecation map showed that sometimes the indigenes “did their own thing” close to water bodies and on hills where it was very easy for water to run off into water bodies. Also, they had satellite refuse dumps scattered all around. Though, they experienced health hazards and its attendant problems, they appeared oblivious to the need for alternatives.

Derick Abandoh, ProNet Accra Officer in charge of Hygiene, said the organisation introduced the CLTS approach to the community because it saw evidence of open defecation. Besides, its research proved that there had not been any previous funding of any projects relating to WASH in the community.

Upon entry, ProNet officials took the community through pre-triggering (getting to know the community), triggering (mapping defecation routes), post triggering and the walk of shame (leading the community members to the defecation site and holding discussions at the scene). All of these were supposed to alert the community about the unpleasant outcome of defecating in the open.

The construction of the latrines was undertaken by the community members themselves, using locally available material and local labour. Some of them have estimated the construction cost to be between GH¢70 and GH¢100 [US$ 49-70].

According to the people, the latrines are helping to keep flies away, leading to fewer disease germs being spread from place to place and there is less fecal seepage into water bodies. The result has been that there have been fewer diseases – less diarrhea, less worms, less cholera, and less typhoid fever.

Lamisi J. Dabire, Communication and Campaigns Officer of WaterAid, Ghana, said “All these monies came from their own pockets; it shows their commitment.” She added, “We want to bring the self-help spirit in the community up.”

ProNet has also been working to improve water supply situation in the area [by] putting iron removal plants in some boreholes to make the water safe for use.

Source: Public Agenda / Peace FM Online, 23 Oct 2009

Ghana: journalist wins international award for water and sanitation campaign

Raphael Ahenu receiving his award from Terry Waite

A Ghanaian journalist and human rights campaigner has won a British award for his water and sanitation campaign. Raphael Ahenu received a 2009 SMK Campaigner Award in the international category on 17 September 2009.

Mr. Ahenu is campaigning for clean water and sanitation facilities to be provided to 100 communities, schools and hospitals in the Brong-Ahafo and Ashanti regions of Ghana by 2015. Through radio talk shows and other publicity methods he mobilises rural communities to demand their rights to such facilities. Mr. Ahenu plans to advocate at the local level and lobby central government so that water and sanitation facilities are provided to rural communities in both these regions.

The Sheila McKechnie Foundation (SMK) is a charity set up in 2005 to connect, inform and support campaigners. The winners of the annual SMK awards receive support, advise and training to further develop their campaigns.

Mr. Ahenu is CEO of African Media Aid (AFRIMA) based in Sunyani. He offcially launched his “Access to Clean Water and Sanitation” campaign on 25 September 2009 at Odumase in the Sunyani West District of the Brong-Ahafo Region. Ay the launch, he announced that from next year AFRIMA and Global Media Foundation (GLOMEF) would be presenting Sanitation and Hygiene Awards to recognise outstanding achievements in this area by organisations, individuals and communities in Ghana.

See a short interview with Raphael, speaking just after he received his award from humanitarian and former envoy for the Church of England Terry Waite.

Source: SMK, 17 Sep 2009 ; Michael Boateng, The Chronicle / allAfrica.com, 25 Sep 2009

Ghana: stop violence against girls – build school toilets

Located at the heart of Central Regional capital, Cape coast is the Adisadel Primary and Junior High School, one of the most popular basic schools in Cape coast. [...] 80 kilometres afar towards the northern part of the region is a community called Tintimhwe, a cocoa growing community with a basic school – Tintimhwe D/A primary school. Unlike the usual characteristic differences between rural and urban schools – quality school buildings, qualified teachers school library etc, there is characteristic similarity between the two schools in question – The lack of school toilets.

Perhaps another similarity, neither structural nor physical but attitudinal is that girls in both schools visit the bushes to attend to natures call whenever they are in school, and exposes them to the dangers of sexual and other forms of physical and psychological violence.

[...] The Big lottery (U.K) Funded Stop Violence Against Girls in School (SVAGS) project [implemented by ActionAid in Ghana, Mozambique and Kenya] is concerned about making the school environment safer for girls through the institution and enactment of the requisite policies and legislations that focus specifically on alleviating violence tendencies against girls in school. On the occasion of Children’s Day in Ghana, it is time to pause and reflect on the state of child protection, survival and development policies and practices in Ghana, with a central focus, Violence Against Girls in school.

[T]he lack of separate toilets for girls as a major cause of absenteeism for girls in schools. Adequate toilet facilities require the provision of separate and decent toilets and urinals for boys and girls in school. In 2008, the Ministry of Education reported that only 48% out of the total number of 13,247 primary schools have access to toilet facilities in Ghana with the highest proportion of primary schools with toilets (90%) in Tema and the lowest (10%) in Kintampo South District. At the Junior High School Level, only 52% of public schools had toilets with the highest (93%) in Dangbe West in the Greater Accra Region and the lowest (9%) in the Juabeso district in the Western Region.

The absence of toilets for girls does not only affect school attendance but also contributes to the denial of their right to dignity and quality education. The national completion rate for boys at the primary level is 91% whereas that of girls is 79% which suggests that boys have 10% additional chances of completing primary school than girls. This is the reason why the gender parity ration is 1:0.96 as against the target of 1:1 that was missed as far back as 2005. The situation is attributed mainly to the absence of a comprehensive and operational infrastructural policy of the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service, even though the ministry claims there exist one on the face but has seen little or no implementation and coordination.

The result of the apparent laxity in implementing and coordinating the said policy (if it exists at all) is to blame for the over 16,000 basic schools without toilets. Before I proceed to make any recommendations to the Government, I would like to humbly request of the Ghana Education Service to inform Ghanaians on what it has been up to all these years, until the realization that up to 48% of our basic schools have no toilets. Did this happen overnight? …What about the past Parliamentary Select Committees on education and gender? …. And the Ministry of Women and Children. Were they aware our children, especially girls had no toilets in schools, and still expected them to pass and pass well? If they were aware, what did they do? What about the District Chief Executives who have led this county in the past….How did they feel in awarding school contracts that had no toilets at all? Children are a vulnerable group…with no voice and whose rights need to be protected and provided for. In that respect any person who attempts consciously or ignorantly acts in a manner as to deprive them of their right to dignity, development and survival cannot escape without blame.

[...] Ghana needs strong institutions who can prevent even an N.G.O from building a school in a locality just because it has no toilet facility in its design ; a Ghana Education Service that can prevent District Assemblies from building schools without separate toilets for girls..or a Ghana Education Service that can lobby and advocate for the inclusion of girl friendly facilities at the District Level. This is what we need…..An Education Service that can leverage the political interest of politically motivated DCE’s and the real development needs of the child ,especially girls…and a Civil Society that can monitor District Assemblies to make sure they implement infrastructure policies of the Ministry of Education.

The Ministry of Education should collaborate with the GETFund, Social Investment Fund, International Donors and other funding agency in basic school infrastructure to adopt a common school design which includes separate toilets and changing rooms for girls. The support of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education could be sought n this respect, to facilitate the harmonization of institutional interests between the Ministry of Local Government , Education, Women and children. This should not be left for the Infrastructure Coordinating Unit of the Ministry. It should be at the Ministerial level with the participation of the Infrastructure Unit. After interagency consensus has been achieved on the policy, the Infrastructure Unit may now commence the actual work for which it was set up-monitor and coordinate compliance of District Assemblies to the infrastructure policy. The unit may seek a court order to prevent any District Assembly from putting up any school building without strict recourse to the infrastructural policy for basic schools.

What about the over 16,000 schools already built without toilets? District Assemblies should be encouraged to come out with collaborative strategies to construct separate toilets for girls in such schools. This could be done by community-District Assembly partnerships where the DA’s will provide cement and roofing sheets for such projects, with the communities donating labour, wood, and other local resources available. On children’s day, the 31st of August, the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition as part of the Stop Violence Against Girls in School project wishes to entreat all and sundry to renew our commitment as a nation to making the school environment and the world a safer place for children.

This opinion piece was written by Kofi Asare, National Program Officer, Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC)

Source: Kofi Asare, Public Agenda / allAfrica.com, 31 Aug 2009

Ghana: 14.3 million Euro for sanitation crusade

Mr John Dramani Mahama, Ghana’s Vice President, on 15 July 2009, said the government is allocating 30 million Ghana cedis [Euro 14.37 million] to lead the sanitation crusade in the country. With this announcement the new NDC government fulfils its presidential election campaign promise of December 2008.

“The sanitation situation poses a challenge to government and its allied institutions, notably, the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies whose responsibility it is to manage the sector.”

The Vice President said this in a speech read on his behalf by Mr Albert Abongo, Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, at the opening of the 20th “Mole conference”.

He also urged civil society organizations to promote awareness on attitudinal change towards water, sanitation and hygiene issues.

Mole XX is a conference organized by the Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation (CONIWAS) that serves as a platform to dialogue, share information and knowledge on the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene sector.

Source: Ghana web, 16 Jul 2009

Ghana – GH¢8.6m spent on sanitation-related diseases in Upper West

Sanitation-related diseases accounted for about GH¢8.6 million of money spent in the treatment of diseases reported to health facilities in the Upper West Region last year and thereby strained the finances of the various Mutual Health Insurance schemes.

Out of this amount about GH¢7,427,351 was spent on patients on admission while GH¢1,254,117 took care of out patients. These diseases are malaria, acute respiratory infections and diarrhoea.

Alhaji Abu Yahaya, Chairman of the Upper West Regional Health Committee who disclosed this at Wa on Saturday said during the period, 208,309 patients reported at these facilities with malaria while 29,494 patients and 10,537 patients suffered from acute respiratory infections and diarrhoea respectively.

Speaking when he presided at the closing session of a one-week course for Sanitation Guards drawn from the Wa Municipality, Wa East, Wa West and Sissala East Districts, he noted that these diseases were 90% preventable if the people changed their behaviour and attitude to sanitation.

He called on the government to invest heavily in sanitation in order to arrest the huge money that was constantly expended on medical care and the man-hours lost as a result of diseases that could be prevented.

Mr. Emmanuel Volsuri, Regional Operations Supervisor of Zoom Lion Ghana Limited said 90 Sanitation Guards had so far been trained in the region and provided with the necessary logistics and bicycles and uniform to enhance their work.

He said Zoom Lion organized the training programme to impart in the participants the relevant skills and knowledge to carry their duties effectively.

The Guards are expected to assist Environmental Health Officers in hygiene education and promotion, premise inspection, dissemination of sanitary information, supervision and monitoring of sanitation services.

The Upper West Regional Minister, Mahmud Khalid in a speech read on his behalf, said the Global economic recession enjoined all persons to be serious with sanitation to avert the channelling of resources to fight diseases that could be prevented.

He commended Zoom Lion for its contribution to solving environmental problems adding that, the nation’s objectives could only be achieved if the people had healthy bodies and minds.

Source – Ghana Business News

Ghana – Ministry Provides Subsidies for Household Toilets

The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development says it has a subsidy facility reduce the cost of providing household toilet facilities in a bid to reduce pressure on neighbourhood and public toilets.

This was announced by the Director of Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr. Demedeme Naa Lenason

He reminded landlords that it is an offence not to provide these toilet facilities for households and that steps were being taking to ensure that recalcitrant landlords are made to face the full rigors of the law.

According to the 2000 Population and Housing Census more than 20% of Ghanaians do not have any form of latrines and therefore resort to open defecation which posses serious environmental and health threats to society.

Speaking recently at a media briefing in Accra on “Health Menace of Public Latrines” Mr. Lenason said that the 2000 census revealed that 31.45% of households in Ghana use public latrines as compared to 8.5% using Water Closet , 22% pit latrine, 6.9% KVIP , bucket or pan latrine 4% and with 6.9% attending nature’s call in other people’s houses.

“Enhancing access to adequate Environmental Sanitation is known to be associated with improved quality of human resource and poverty reduction through its impact on favorable health outcomes and increased productivity,” he said.

Mr. Lenason indicated that the Ministry’s Environmental Sanitation Policy of 1999 is unequivocal on households and public toilets; the policy states that at least 90% of a population should have access to acceptable domestic toilet while the remaining 10% has access to hygienic toilets.

According to him hygienic public toilets are provided for the transient population in all areas of intense public activities such as markets, shopping areas, transport terminals, etc but unfortunately most people in Ghana use it as their permanent places of convenience.

He said with the increasing pressure on these public toilet facilities it is common to see neighborhood toilets become full and overflowing which often leads to their closure , thus depriving the users this essential service.

“The facilities are often messy, smelling, unhygienic and dirty, users will then have no other option than to resort to other unacceptable options such as “free ranging” he added.

The Director indicated that his outfit has over the years pursued strategies aimed at minimizing the health impact of poor neighborhood public latrines and the wide gap that exist in the access to sanitation.

Some of these interventions includes increase in participation of the private sector in the management of existing public toilets, promoting better and modern technologies , de-emphasing neighborhood public toilets to force landlords to provide households toilets for tenants, rehabilitating and conversion of existing public toilets to more modern ones .

In addition his outfit is working to strengthen institutions that have responsibilities for the enforcement of sanitation laws and development control e.g Environmental Health, Development Control Units of the various MMDAs and also enforcing standards and conditions of franchise agreements for public toilets through effective monitoring.

Government and its development partners have made large investments in the water and sanitation sector with the aim of accelerating the provision of safe drinking water and adequate sanitation in both rural and urban communities to enhance the achievement of the MDGs particularly goal 7 which aims at halving by 2015 the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe water and basic sanitation.

Currently close to 2.6 billion people worldwide lack sanitation facilities and most of them are children.

Source – Public Agenda, Accra

Ghana – Ban use of bucket latrines

Accra, April 30, GNA – About 20 per cent of Ghana’s population do not have any form of latrines and therefore resort to open defecation, Mr. Demedeme Naa Lenason, Director, Environmental Health and Sanitation, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development said on Thursday.

He said, also 31.45 per cent of households in Ghana used public latrines as compared to 8.5 per cent using water closet, 22 per cent pit latrine, 6.9 per cent KVIP and 6.9 per cent attend nature’s call in other people’s houses.

Mr. Lenason at a press briefing on the “Health Menace of Public Latrines” added that enhancing access to adequate sanitary facilities was imperative to improving the quality of life as well as poverty reduction.

He noted that government and development partners were investing in the water and sanitation sector in both rural and urban communities to enhance the achievement of the MDGs.

Mr Lenason, however added that with the increase in population and migration, the few facilities were over-stretched thereby creating health hazards.

Mr Lenanon therefore urged Metropolitan, Municipal and the District Assemblies to ban the defecation and urination in open spaces adding, “This can only be effect if you construct more of these facilities”.

He added that MMDAs must also take steps to ban the use of pan and bucket latrines and enforce the law on the use of domestic toilets.

Source – Modern Ghana

Ghana – Assemblies urged to prosecute Sanitation offenders

Mr Las Bayou. Upper West Regional Environmental Health Officer has urged the Municipal and District Assemblies to prosecute people who flout sanitation bye-laws to deter them.

“This problem will continue to stay with us unless the Municipal and District Assemblies begin sending such offenders to court, especially those who do not keep their surroundings clean.”

He said only Jirapa, among the nine Municipal and District Assemblies in the region, had on a few occasion’s prosecuted people who infringed on the bye-laws and urged the other Assemblies to also do same.

Mr Bayou who spoke to the Ghana News Agency at Wa on the challenges his out fit faced in the management of waste in the region, said they would in future publish the names of all offenders to serve as a deterrent.

He said people in Wa, the regional capital, even refuse to confine their animals and allow them to roam freely and that when the animals are caught by the authorities impounded and their owners fined, “there was always an outcry.”

He was not happy that after the massive clean up exercise about two months ago, people had gone back to their old ways of dumping refuse indiscriminately.

“The drains have been re-choked with waste because residents were not cooperating with Environmental health officers and Zoomlion to keep the area tidy.”

Mr Bayou commended Zoom Lion, Plan Ghana, the Ministry of Health and the Community Water and Sanitation Agency for supporting efforts to ensure environmental cleanliness in the communities.

Source – Modern Ghana

Ghana, Central Region: Coastal Dwellers Cry for Toilet Facilities

The people of Elmina in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem District of the Central Region (KEEA) have made a distress plea to government to provide more toilet facilities for coastal dwellers. Such a move, they argued, would not only reduce the spread of diseases in fishing communities but ultimately help areas such as Elmina increase their revenue from tourism.

The spokesperson for a youth group Elmina, Eric Andoh explained that the least said about toilet facilities in the area the better as even the few ones around are “so poor that you can’t even enter let alone use them.” He added that such pressing situations have caused most of the people to resort to defecating on the beaches.

[...] Meanwhile Zoomlion Company Limited has appealed to the people to collaborate with the outfit in ensuring proper sanitation in the district. Mrs.Rhoda Donkor, Central Regional Coordinator of the waste management company [remarked]: “When we continue defecating on our beaches, gutters and any open space, tourists would not be encouraged to visit these filthy places thereby preventing the nation from getting its revenue from tourism. Let’s all help keep our surroundings clean by refraining from littering and defecating in gutters and along our beaches as these culminate in increasing the spread of diseases in our country.”

Source: Kwaku Baah- Acheamfour, Public Agenda / allAfrica.com, 16 Feb 2009

Ghana – Toilet War Lingers

REPORTS REACHING DAILY GUIDE indicate that the struggle to take over public toilets by some National Democratic Congress (NDC) adherents in parts of the country still remains a ritual even though the practice has widely been condemned.

The latest facility to fall prey to this untoward attack is the Mallam Tunga public toilet in the Ga West District Assembly.

According to Alhaji Ali Gariba, spokesperson for SEIZAIG Enterprise, official operators of the facility, on January 8 2009, a day after President John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills was sworn into office, a group of young men purported to have come from the camp of the NDC thronged the facility, demanding that the caretakers left the place for them since for them, their government was in power.

Meanwhile, the facility has been given on contract to the above-named outfit under the Privatisation of Sanitation Facilities Scheme by the Ga West District Assembly to operate and manage a modern 30-seater sanitary facility on the land of Mallam.

The first contract was established from 2006 to 2008 and was renewed from the latter date to 27th March, 2010.

As confused as he was by the development, Alhaji Gariba questioned the people who allegedly sent those boys to come and take over the facility. “They said that Mr. Daniel Sackey, NDC Constituency Chairman of Weija had ordered them to take over the toilet,” he told the paper.

Read More – Daily Guide