The World Bank sanitation team is organizing a two day sanitation workshop 15th to 16 February, to look options and way forward to improve and expand sanitation mainly liquid waste management in the Greater Accra. The objective of the workshop is to study current sanitation situation, identify the studies or interventions ongoing or planned. The participants will discuss a number of technical and institutional options to develop a realistic roadmap to improving and expanding the services.
The workshop is expected to provide the following; better understanding of the current status of sanitation in the Greater Accra Municipal Assembly (GAMA), existing and ongoing studies and interventions, coordination among key stakeholders and donors, initial discussion of possible institutional and technical options, a road map to further analyze options or implement actions to address the needs to improve and extend sanitation in the GAMA.
The initiative to expand and improve sanitation services in GAMA will need a lot of coordination and an integrated approach towards services delivery and it hoped the workshop will cultivate a common vision among stakeholders and a road map for the priority studies and intervention identified:
The workshop seeks to identify exiting low cost technologies that are simple and cost effective with focus on house hold toilets, institutional and public toilets, septage / sewage collection treatment and disposal and sewage services.
Sanitation in Ghana is a national priority as demonstrated in the Sanitation ad Water for All compact. Where government has pledged huge investment into improving water and sanitation services. The districts too have prioritized sanitation through developing district environmental Sanitation strategy and Action plans. (DESSAP)
The institutional arrangements and options will be the eight metropolitan Assemblies. Each has a waste management department and DESSAPS. Unfortunately liquid waste flows across metropolitan municipal assembles, which requires an integrated strategy to expand and improve sanitation services in the GAMA. This strategy has to jointly clearly spell out how to operate and manage systems, share costs and revenue to strengthen technical and financial capacity to deal with challenge.
In the GAMA and Ghana at large, sanitation services are unplanned and there is little capacity to operate and maintain the existing facilities. And Ghana demonstrates poor access to Sanitation service compared to economic and developmental indicators of the county in the region.
There is general poor access to sanitation services; only 18% of the urban population and 7% of the rural population have access to decent sanitary facilities. 41% of the residents rely on shared facilities. 33% of the households in city have on site treatment facilities like septic tanks for example. Sewages are only in Tema and the treatment plant is broken. I.e. the fluent ends up into the sea untreated.