Five-year project to provide sustainable water, sanitation services launched

 A five-year research and learning project aimed at equipping state institutions and service providers towards the provision of sustainable water and sanitation services in the country has been launched in Accra.

Dubbed, ‘Urban Resilience by Building and Applying New Evidence in WASH (UR­BAN-WASH)’, the initiative was being undertaken by the Ghana Water Limited, formerly Ghana Water Company Limited in col­laboration with the United States Agency for International Develop­ment (USAID).

The project is designed to generate evidence through applied research to promote sustainable, equitable and climate-resilient WASH and water resources man­agement policies and programming in urban and peri-urban areas.

The primary objective of the URBAN WASH project is to address knowledge gaps of service providers and government institutions in USAID priority countries, including Ghana and to strengthen the evidence base for decision-making.

Launching the project yesterday, Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Ms Cecilia Abena Dapaah, in a speech read on her behalf, said, the project which aligned with the Ministry’s WASH Sector Development Programme (GWASHSDP) 2021-2030, would enhance efforts by government and partners to provide sustainable water and sanitation services in the country.

Even though access to basic wa­ter services in urban areas stands at 96.4 per cent according to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) Population and Housing Census, 2021, she explained that, a segment of the population within the lower wealth group still lacks access to basic water services.

In this regard, she said, the government supported the Ghana Water Limited to create a Low-Income Consumer Support Department (LICSD) dedicated to addressing the water needs of low-income customers in urban and peri-urban areas and thus ensuring equity in water services delivery in the urban water space.

Also, with the support of the World Bank and the government of Denmark, the Minister not­ed that, service pipelines and household connections have been extended to some communities within the Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Areas which hitherto did not have access to basic water services and were buying water from third parties which had issues with water quality and affordability.

This, she stated, had also provid­ed the beneficiary communities the opportunity to improve their resil­ience towards water-related public health crises, like COVID-19.

Ms Dapaah said that, addition­ally, a number of Water Supply Systems were being constructed in different parts of the country including Damongo, Sekondi-Ta­koradi, Sunyani, Keta and Tamale under the Water for All agenda to improve water accessibility in those areas.

Managing Director of Gha­na Water Limited, Dr Clifford Braimah, said the company had signed a Memorandum of Un­derstanding (MoU) with USAID’s URBAN WASH project in March this year to cooperate and coordi­nate on implementation research in Accra, Kumasi, and Tamale.

The partnership, he explained, would focus on three key areas namely; Water Quality Manage­ment, Water Equity and Non-rev­enue Water to leverage research, evidence and shared knowledge to transform the WASH landscape in Ghana.

The two research initiatives, which form the backbone of the MoU, he said, was the Accra Sub­sidy Study, which would examine the efficacy of subsidised water connections in Accra, providing insights for similar initiatives across the region.

He stated that, the other was the Ghana Buy-In which would focus on Tamale and Kumasi to improve water quality, equity, and non-reve­nue water management.

Acting Health Office Director of USAID, Heather Robinson, said, the study and lessons learned from recent water connection subsidy projects in Accra would help the government develop programmes that provide afford­able water connections for those in urban areas and allow other countries to benefit from Ghana’s experience.

She indicated that the project would work with the government to assess three key challenges in urban water management name­ly, water quality, fairness, and non-revenue water, which refers to water that is lost before it reaches customers due to leaks, theft, or metering errors adding that the research findings would guide the development and testing of solu­tions to address these issues.

Mr Daniel Allen, Senior Man­ager for Water Utilities Perfor­mance Monitoring, Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC), reiterated the Commission’s sup­port towards the development of programmes that would enhance access to safe and quality water to all segments of the population.

 BY CLAUDE NYARKO ADAMS