The 23rd edition of the longest running annual Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector event in Ghana, the Mole Conference is scheduled to take place at Modern City hotel in the Northern Region of Ghana from August 7 - 11, 2012 on theme, Financing WASH service delivery; Past, Current and vision for the future ". The discussions will be led by the Ministry of finance who will give over view of the trends in financing WASH in Ghana.
Mole Conference is one of the biggest Multi-Stakeholder annual platforms in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector in Ghana. The Platform, named after the venue of the maiden edition, Mole in the Northern Region of Ghana, is organized by the Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation (CONIWAS) and brings together sector practitioners from NGOs, Government, Private Operators, Networks, CBOs, CSOs, etc. to dialogue, learn and share knowledge/information on specific themes that affect the sector.
The key objective of the conference is to take stock, share experiences, challenges, lessons and the trends towards improving financing (WASH) services delivery. The specific objectives of the workshop are to discuss the financing of WASH Services with respect to past, current and vision for the future; exploring the options in public financing of WASH delivery as well as assessing government 's progress in financing WASH.
The conference will cover four sub themes, namely, i)Public financing of WASH delivery: Exploring the options ii) Capital maintenance financing practices and innovative options for the future ; iii)Public-private partnership for WASH financing: what are the options; iv)Public-private partnership for WASH financing: what are the options; and v) Tracking functionality of WASH services. The investments needed to deliver sustainable WASH services, including the funds needed to manage the infrastructure, expand coverage and upgrade service delivery to meet current social and environmental expectations, are huge. Yet, most services are underfunded with dire consequences for the users, especially the poorest, despite the fact that people in Ghana spend a significant portion of their income on WASH services: in areas served by municipal water and sanitation systems, users typically pay charges to connect to systems, as well as regular tariff contributions for continued access; in rural areas, communities typically make a nominal contribution in cash or kind towards capital expenditures, and frequently are expected to fully bear the costs of recurring expenses; and at household level, individuals in-vest in developing or improving their own water system, in installing various forms of on-site sanitation or in improving hygiene practices. Ghana has taken giant strides to harmonize procedures and programmes amongst the myriad of players in the WASH sector. This is manifested in the a number of key international agreements to which Ghana is signatory to. The conference will examine how these initiatives would in practice help to:
- Bridge the gap between international declarations and practical implementation of those declarations (localizing the Paris Declaration for Implementation and Monitoring).
- Develop practical recommendations and strategies for strengthening financial sus-tainability aspects in WASH initiatives;
- Learn about established and innovative financial concepts, their practical applications (successes and failures), their implications and their relevance to the WASH sector;
- Locate knowledge gaps, raising issues and relevant trends which would require further analysis and capitalization
Simon Peter
@ CONIWAS/RCN Ghana