By Stanley Senay
Accra, July 11, GNA – Mrs Basilia Nanbigne Adu-Owusu, Executive Secretary of Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation (CONIWAS), has urged Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), government, private sectors and donor partners to coordinate their activities to strengthen service delivery in the Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector.
She said that, currently, coordination and management of activities within the sector was weak, resulting in waste and misuse of funds which could have been used to provide water and sanitation facilities for other deprived communities.
She cautioned that funding opportunities in the sector could be missed if real strategies and steps were not taken to harmonise the sector.
Mrs Adu-wusu was speaking at a workshop on Thursday in Accra, to harmonise institutional framework for climate-resilient, safe, and sustainable WASH services delivery, it was on the theme: “WASH Prioritization And Its Impacts On Social And Economic Development.”
She said coordination would help find the loopholes in the sector to improve water quality and sanitation across rural areas, saying, the loopholes could be capacity building, financing, or issue mapping amongst sector institutions,
Speaking about climate-resilient, she said it can be tackled by providing and protecting water resources for human consumption, adding that, providing water reservoirs and boreholes with modern facilities to ensure its cleanness was key.
She said having a reliable source of clean water during drought, a toilet and sanitation system that can withstand flooding and a handwashing station to protect against illness, reduces the overall disease and livelihood risks faced particularly by poor and marginalised communities.
“In Ghana, illegal mining also posed a serious threat to access to safe water…Climate change is another of these threats and is attracting increasing global attention,” she said.
Ms Adu-wusu said the effects of climate change were already being felt with changes to the patterns of extreme weather events.
Increasingly, she noted that “we will face situations of either too much or not enough water as droughts and floods become more frequent and extreme.”
For many people, she said, safe WASH was the difference between coping and not coping with climate change. Among others, Mrs Adu-wusu said CONIWAS continued to ensure that WASH services were recognised not only as fundamental to development but also essential if people were to withstand the impacts of climate change.
With the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Six, ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, near to being met, he said, “urgent action is needed.
She said there needed to be a collective effort and approach to achieve the SDGs on Water and Sanitation.
She called on governments to recommit investments in water and sanitation “Otherwise we will not achieve the SDGs and fight climate change.
During an open discussion, stakeholders urged sector players within the WASH sector to reassess and refine how various stakeholders could work together to effectively manage their activities.
“Having a policy is a good starting point but this must be complemented by a realistic and prioritised sector development plan. This plan should highlight and coordinate priority, cost areas for investment and set realistic annual goals,” they said.
GNA