Confab calls for effective water, sanitation policy

Pg 55 Mon. April 14

Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
A conference on water and sanitation has ended in Accra with a call on governments to put in place policies, strategies and plans for an effective institutional development on water and sanitation delivery.
Accordingly, experts and professionals in the water and sanitation sector have also been called upon to document and share innovative approaches to benefit a majority of the populace.
The call was part of recommendations at the end of the 33rd Water Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC) International Conference which started from Monday, April 7, 2008.
The conference, which was on the theme, “Access to Sanitation and Safe Water: Global Partnerships and Local Actions”, brought together experts in the water and sanitation sector from across the world.
The Deputy Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Madam Cecilia Abena Dapaah, who closed the conference, said Ghana was aiming at ensuring total sanitation throughout the country and commended the work of Zoomlion, a private waste management organisation.
According to her, the government’s mission of ensuring good sanitation was achievable but said it would also require the involvement of all.
She said achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on water and sanitation should be a short-term goal, adding that “nothing prevents us, as individual developing countries, from aiming higher”.
Mr Jon Lane of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, who gave a global overview on sanitation, said 2.6 billion people lacked the use of toilet facilities.
He said the progress on water globally was doing better than sanitation but noted that Africa was lagging behind in both aspects.
A summary of reports on environmental sanitation called for the issue of the definition of sanitation, globally, nationally and locally, to be revisited.
It also called for advocacy for political commitment to enable change on economic, social and health issues.
On the provision of effective water supply, participants called for thorough training, baseline surveys and a follow up on users of household water treatment systems (HWTS), as well as more research to establish the factors that influenced households to select HWTS to ensure their expansion.
They also suggested that reducing connection fees to households might make it easier for the poor to have access to water where the utility supply was available.