By Philip Tengzu
Wa, (UW/R), Aug. 9, GNA – The Upper West Regional Inter-agency Coordinating Committee on Sanitation (RICCS) has urged the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources (MSWR) to expedite action to resolve the functionality and data reflection challenges of the Basic Sanitation Information System (BaSIS).
The RICCS said the timely intervention to make the BaSIS functional would enable it to verify Open Defecation Free (ODF) communities in the various districts in the region.
Mr Dennis Menance Bayuo, the Upper West Regional Focal Person on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), made the appeal during the fourth quarter meeting of the RICCS to assess the progress made in the WASH sector in the region.
State and non-state actors in the WASH sector in the region constituted the RICCS with the Upper West Regional Coordinating Director being the Chairperson and the Upper West Regional Environmental Health and Sanitation Department (EHSD) being the convener.
The appeal followed a report by the EHSD at the meeting, which indicated that the region had not recorded any ODF community within the first half of 2023.
The data from the EHSD indicated 815 out of 1,167 communities in the region had attained ODF status with 13 ODF communities recorded in 2022 while no community had attained ODF status in the region in the first half of 2023.
Mr Agambire Alhassan Inusah, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at the EHSD and Regional BaSIS Trainer, explained that the ineffectiveness of the BaSIS had affected the region’s performance in the ODF campaign as WASH funding agencies expected results from the region to march the resources expended in the sector.
Madam Freda Naatu, the Upper West Regional Director of the EHSD, however, explained that no community in the region had been recorded as attaining ODF status in 2023 because of the inability of communities to reflect ODF on BaSIS due to technical challenges with the system.
She said some communities in the region had attained ODF status on the ground within 2023 but did not reflect on the BaSIS for those communities to be independently verified by the RICCS for consideration as ODF communities.
She also stressed the need for Municipal and District Assemblies to monitor and supervise the activities of environmental health officers at the district level to ensure their effectiveness as the lack of effective monitoring of their activities was affecting their output at the district level.
Mr Oscar Baalabong, the Project Field Officer of the Netherlands Development Organization (SNV), indicated that the organisation had introduced a revolving fund to offer soft loans to people in the Nandom and Lambussie Districts to construct WASH facilities, including household latrines.
He said so far 42 loans had been disbursed from May to June 2023, valued at USD55,921.00 and benefited 225 people with each person receiving an average of USD 1,318.00.
The Global Communities, Vibrant Village Foundation (VVF), Yison Tech Hub and the Centre for Advancing Rural Opportunities (CARO)-Ghana among others also presented their interventions towards improving access to WASH in the region.
A total of 313 communities had been triggered in 2023 by the partners in working the WASH sector in the region.
GNA