Open defecation and the 2016 general election
“We will establish a National Sanitation Authority and completely end open defecation by 2021.” The President of Ghana and flag bearer of the ruling National Democratic Congres (NDC) is reported to have announced this in Accra on September 13 while providing highlights of his party’s manifesto for the December 2016 general election.
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The statement provides a lot of inspiration for anti-open defecation campaigners, especially coming from a sitting Head of State.
Since every political party has the potential of winning the upcoming election, anti-pen defecation campaigners would rejoice further to hear similar (or even better) targets on open defecation from all political parties. This would imply that, for whoever wins the elections open defecation will be on the development agenda with a clear road map.
When a colleague shared the ‘good news’ on a popular sanitation-related WhatsApp platform, one member simply remarked: ‘We are watching,’ and another said ‘I hope not thesis.’ This is an indication of how much the sector is expecting to hear about the details of this dream.
Details
It is the hope of the anti-open defecation campaigners to hear more details about how the NDC will do this. This is because currently,there are issues with how toilets are provided in the country and how they impact on household uptake of toilets and individual behaviours towards open defecation.
Various approaches to ending open defecation so far include the provision of communal toilets, provision of subsidies for households to build toilets, legislation and law enforcement, behaviour change interventions and public education. None of these approaches have so far been fully appreciated by professionals in the WASH sector and there have been debates within the sector concerning which approach works or has worked best.
Any intention to use communal toilets to end open defecation will fail. There are so many of them and yet they have contributed too little to ending open defecation in the country. One basic fact is that many people simply will not like to use communal toilets for several reasons, including poor hygiene, queuing, distance from home and associated inconveniences.
In terms of diarrhoea prevalence, there is evidence in the 2014 GDHS that, there is very little difference between users of communal toilets and other shared toilets (10.5 per cent ) and those who practise open defecation or use unimproved facilities (13.4 per cent ). Yet the rate is only 5.4 per cent among those who use improved household toilets. Landlords also take advantage of the presence of communal latrines in their vicinity and refuse to install domestic toilets. Consequently, the cycle of open defecation continues.
Again, if Ghana is on record to be ranking among the dirtiest countries in the world, it is because only 15 per cent of the population use improved household toilets and nearly 60 per cent use communal and other shared toilet facilities. The (united nations) does not count communal and other shared toilet facilities among the improved ones. Therefore, if any government should continue to provide communal toilets, Ghana will perpetually be branded as a dirty country, a branding that will definitely have negative social and economic impacts on the country.
Recommended approach
If any future government intends to provide every household with a toilet, it will be good news. There is, however, the fear that it may not be easy to do so for every household within a short time and once some households have been provided with toilets by the government or any other agency, the tendency has been for other households to wait for their turn. This is one of the lessons derived from the Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach, which emphasises education and behaviour change that trigger households to stop open defecation and install their own latrines. Communities with knowledge of previous subsidies for household toilets are usually the most difficult to convince to provide for themselves.
Meanwhile in 2016 alone the CLTS approach has yielded more than 13,000 household latrines in five regions with zero subsidies and 171 rural communities have been verified officially as open defecation-free. Therefore, if the government is not sure of enough funds to provide for all households, it may not be very prudent to start any free or subsidised provision of household toilets and leave several communities out because they will forever keep waiting for their turn which may never come.
The best strategy for a lasting impact would be an approach which provides the necessary enabling environment to facilitate the installation and use of safe household toilets by households. The necessary enabling environment includes prioritisation of access to household toilets by all MMDAs, education and behaviour change interventions, provision of technology options, technical support, innovative financing, legislation and enforcement, pro-poor considerations, as well as treatment and possible reuse of human excreta. There is also the need to ensure that every institution and workplace has an adequate number of clean toilets.