By Anthony Adongo Apubeo, GNA
Bolgatanga, July 20, GNA – The Upper East Regional branch of the Media Coalition Against Open Defecation (M-CODE) has commenced a one-week regional accountability exercise to assess the performance of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs).
This follows the government’s decision to make sanitation a Key Performance Indicator (KPI).
The initiative, themed “Institutionalising Sanitation Performance,” seeks to independently monitor how Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) are implementing sanitation interventions aimed at eliminating open defecation and improving environmental cleanliness.
A statement issued by the Coalition, and signed and by Ms Fatima Anafu-Astanga, its Regional Coordinator, said the exercise marked the first phase of the M-CODE’s revitalisation agenda.
The exercise also positioned the media as an accountability bridge between government, traditional authorities, local assemblies and citizens in the collective effort to achieve Open Defecation (OD)-free communities.
As part of the exercise, journalists would be deployed across the Upper East Region to engage key local governance stakeholders and conduct interviews with Assembly Members to assess district-level efforts, challenges and progress in sanitation delivery.
The statement said the government’s decision to include sanitation as a KPI for MMDCEs represented a significant shift from advocacy to measurable governance, making sanitation performance a key criterion for assessing the effectiveness of local government leadership.
It said M-CODE, with support from World Vision Ghana, would provide independent, evidence-based and public monitoring of sanitation performance across the region.
“The era where sanitation remained in policy documents and campaign speeches is over. This activation is about evidence. What is working on the ground, what is stalling, and where citizens are still being left behind,” the statement said.
According to the Coalition, assessment teams would evaluate key performance areas, including budget allocations for sanitation, infrastructure delivery, enforcement of sanitation by-laws, community sensitisation activities, and collaboration between assemblies and traditional authorities.
The Upper East Region is among seven regions selected for the first phase of the national accountability initiative, being implemented by M-CODE in partnership with World Vision Ghana.
The other participating regions are Central, Western, Greater Accra, Northern, Upper West and Ahafo.
The statement noted that conducting the exercise simultaneously across the seven regions would facilitate comparative learning, promote the adoption of best practices and encourage uniform standards in sanitation governance across MMDAs.
“By tracking all seven regions at the same time, we can identify best practices that can be scaled, and also name districts where progress is slow so that citizens and duty bearers can act,” it added.
The Coalition observed that open defecation remained a major public health and environmental challenge, particularly in rural and peri-urban communities, and stressed that with sanitation now recognised as a KPI, MMDCEs would be expected to demonstrate measurable progress in achieving OD-free communities.
It said the media’s role in the exercise was to document, verify and amplify sanitation performance objectively, rather than to antagonise duty bearers.
The findings of the week-long assessment would be disseminated through various media platforms to inform citizens, traditional leaders and policymakers, while subsequent phases of the initiative would focus on strengthening community monitoring, amplifying citizen voices and tracking sanitation budget implementation at the district level.
GNA
Edited by Caesar Abagali/Benjamin Mensah
Reporter: Anthony Adongo Apubeo
Email: [email protected]