‘Be wary of negative impact of open defecation’
The Minister for Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD), Alhaji Collins Dauda, has stressed the need for all households to own and use improved toilet facilities as a measure to curb open defecation and its related health complications.
Advertisement
He has also urged the public to desist from dumping faecal waste into water bodies, drains and open spaces, pointing out that such practices have serious health implications and they derail economic development.
“Environmental sanitation challenges facing the country are fast becoming endemic and there is the urgent need to decisively deal with them because such challenges have a direct effect on the attainment of the sustainable development goals (SDGs),” he added.
Briefing the press in Accra yesterday on the occasion of World Toilet Day, Alhaji Collins Dauda underscored the need for individuals and institutions to be wary of the negative impact of open defecation and stated that “when somebody engages in open defecation, it puts everybody’s life in danger.”
This year’s event was held on the theme: “Stop Open Defecation: Own a Household Toilet Now.”
Background
World Toilet Day, the celebration of which started in 2007, is an annual event held under the auspices of the United Nations (UN) to create awareness of the need for members of the public to use improved toilet facilities and to refrain from open defecation.
Current figures by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) show that three out of every five Ghanaians, representing 60 per cent of the population, practise open defecation and Ghana could take 500 years to eliminate the practice due to the slow pace at which strategies, laws and interventions are being implemented.
Under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the country’s target for access to improved household toilets was 54 per cent and by the end of 2015, only 15 per cent of that target was achieved.
Target for open defecation
Currently, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target for sanitation, which includes open defecation, is a global figure of 100 per cent by 2030.
Stakeholder collaboration
Guided by this SDG target and taking into account the prediction by UNICEF that it could take the country some 500 years to end open defecation, Alhaji Dauda urged metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) to take pragmatic steps at the local level to discourage the practice of open defecation.
He lauded the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) for its efforts to initiate the Water and Sanitation Project that would ensure that all landlords were supported to have toilets on their premises.
Drawing inspiration from the AMA initiative, Alhaji Dauda asked all MMDAs to submit a roadmap for eradicating open defecation between 2017 and 2020 to the Local Government Ministry by the end of January 2017.
He called on the media, the Ministry of Health and all stakeholders to collaborate with the ministry to make the fight against open defecation successful.