By Comfort Sena Fetrie-Akagbor
Tamale, Nov 21, GNA – Madam Abena Amedormey, Country Representative of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has said billions of individuals are exposed to increased sanitation risks due to open defecation.
She said in Ghana, recent data from the Population and Housing Census showed that only 25 per cent of the national population had access to basic sanitation and 5.4 million people still practised open defecation.
She said this in a speech read on her behalf at the commemoration of this year’s World Toilet Day on the theme: “Toilets – A Place for Peace”.
The event, held in Tamale, was to raise awareness and inspire action on sanitation issues that affected millions of people around the world.
Madam Amedormey said “Universal access to adequate sanitation is a fundamental need and a basic human right, which contributes to reducing illness and death, especially among children. It is therefore, imperative to ensure safely managed services, which require the use of improved facilities such as flush toilets, VIP latrine with a slab that are not shared with other households and where excreta are safely disposed.”
She highlighted CRS’ commitment and investments to improve access to safely managed WASH services in the northern sector.
She said CRS, in 2021, through its discretionary funding, in partnership with Tamale Metropolitan and Sagnarigu Municipal Assemblies, funded the development of Citywide Inclusive Sanitation Plan for the two Assemblies, which is a working document that guides implementation of WASH interventions in Greater Tamale from 2022 to 2025.
Mr Francis Gumah, Programme Manager of CRS, the organisation in the past one and half years supported the construction of over 56 improved household’s toilet facilities in the Northern Region, supported the review, gazetting and public sensitisation of sanitation by-laws of Tamale Metropolitan Assembly for enhanced law enforcement in the area.
He added that over 10,000 improved household latrines and 276 institutional latrines had been constructed in a project supporting communities serving over 100,000 people with improved sanitation services.
Mr Nelson Konlan, Tamale Metropolitan Director of Education, entreated development partners to support in the uptake of improved sanitation in the region to reduce sanitation-related probkems..
GNA