ODF communities in the north increases to 58%

Data from the Northern Regional Environmental Health Unit, in the three Northern Regions, (Savannah, North East and Northern),  indicates that the number of Open Defaecation Free Communities (ODF) has increased from 5% as at June 2016 to some 58% as at July 2019. 

The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who disclosed this during his presentation of the State of the Nation address on Thursday in Accra on the floor of Parliament, said “we are seeing an improvement in the quality of our nation’s sanitation, even though we still have a lot more to do.”

The latest data from the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources shows that ODF communities in Ghana as a whole have increased from 410 in 2016 to over 5,000 communities.

“Now, that is progress, and it did not just happen, it took hard work, commitment and the provision of infrastructure”.

According President Nana Addo, “In fulfilment of our manifesto commitment of “toilets for all”, the government have built 13,800 toilets, which is largely responsible for this development.

“We have not stopped building toilets, we will build more,” he stressed.

According to the Open Defecation League Table, there are 364,139 total households in the northern region alone while total household latrines in the region stood at 122,780 and total number of hand washing facilities in ODF communities also stood at 60,609.

Tatali-Sangule District came first followed by East Mamprusi Municipality and Sawla/Tuna/Kalba District as assemblies with the least percentage of people, who practised OD, and the highest number of people living in ODF communities.

Nanton District, Tamale Metro, North Gonja, West Gonja, and Bole Districts, and Sagnarigu Municipality in that order were among the assemblies with the highest percentage of their residents practising OD or defecate in the open.

Major challenges affecting basic rural sanitation delivery includes lack of planning and coordination of programmes aimed at improving sanitation and this is due to limited staffing and resources for capacity building and implementation of programmes.

There is also limited private sector interest in rural basic sanitation since there is a perception that investments in rural sanitation businesses are not profitable. Improved sanitation technologies are quite expensive and there’s a lack of innovative financing mechanisms to support poor households to build latrines.

Construction of communal toilets also poses a major challenge since it does not motivate households toilets to build their own toilets. Communities in waterlogged environments are disaster-prone which make it difficult to access technologies that suit their peculiar environments.

Another challenge with rural basic sanitation in Ghana is the lack of an effective national monitoring and evaluation systems.

By Kofi Ahovi