GAMA Sanitation and Water Project’s impact 10 years on

Timothy Ngnenbe Features Aug - 15 - 2024 , 16:43

The Greater Accra Metropolitan Area Water and Sanitation Project (GAMA-SWP) has left far-reaching positive outcomes in the country’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector in the past decade.

The project, conceived in 2014 after the country’s worst cholera outbreak since independence, which affected more than 29,000 people and killed 248 in Accra, has stood up as a good example of initiatives that can accelerate the country’s progress towards achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

In response to the epidemic which the Ghana Health Service (GHS) attributed to poor sanitation, including rampant open defecation and inadequate access to water supply, the government rolled out the $150-million GAMA-SWP, with funding from the World Bank.

The ultimate objective of the project was to increase access to improved sanitation and water, as well as enhance the management of environmental sanitation.

Real Impact

Ten years after the implementation of the GAMA-SWP, access to household toilet facilities has increased from 21 per cent in 2014 to 51.7 per cent in 2021, according to the Population and Housing Census (PHC).

One of the school sanitation facilities constructed at Teshie

Also, the statistics revealed that 57.4 per cent of users of household toilets used bio-digester toilet facilities which were promoted by GAMA-SWP.

The figures also show that open defecation in the Greater Accra Region has reduced from 11 per cent in 2015 to 6.2 per cent in 2021, while the national figure stood at 17 per cent.

The Coordinator of the GAMA-SWP, George Asiedu, said the reduction in open defecation in the Greater Accra Region provided ample evidence that the household toilets constructed by the GAMA Project had made the desired impact.

The justification

Evidence on the grounds shows that the intervention has exceeded its targets and contributed significantly to increased access to improved toilets in the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions.

George Asiedu (right), Coordinator of the GAMA-SWP, receiving the 2nd runner-up Project Manager of the year award

Overall, 700,000 household toilets have been constructed in GAMA and Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area (GKMA) as of July, this year, far exceeding the targets.

The first phase of the GAMA-SWP, which was implemented from August 2015 to December 2020, was meant to provide 19,100 improved household toilets but ended up constructing 28,541 at the end of the project. The facilities currently serve over 230,000 low-income beneficiaries in GAMA.

Also, 406 units of gender-sensitive and disability-friendly institutional sanitation facilities, equipped with adequate water supply, were constructed to serve over 251,872 pupils.

The project further supported the Ghana Water Limited (GWL) to provide 10,040 new water connections to over 420,000 low-income beneficiaries in GAMA.

It also provided 56 kilometres (km) of conventional off-site simplified sewerage system to serve 9,010 low-income households and a population of 48,036 in three communities - Ashaiman New Town, TDC Quarters and Bankuman, all in the Tema Metropolitan Area (TMA).

The project further rehabilitated and expanded four priority tertiary drainage systems at Kaneshie First Light, Mallam Junction, Gbawe and Agbogba and desilted 19 others in several municipalities to reduce flooding in Accra.

part of the project, two key manuals were developed to guide the proper construction, installation and emptying of the bio-digester toilet technology to accelerate increasing access to improved household toilets.

Additional financing

Following the successful implementation of the parent project, the World Bank and the government approved additional financing of $125 million to expand the project results to additional beneficiaries in GAMA and to replicate the same in the Ashanti Region – Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area (GKMA).

Some of the artisans who were trained in bio-digester construction at the Ada College of Education

Under the additional financing phase, the target was to construct 30,000 household toilets in the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area (GKMA) to serve 180,000 low-income beneficiaries. As of the end of May this year, about 60 per cent of that target had been met.

Statistics made available to the Daily Graphic by the GAMA-SWP Secretariat showed that under the second phase, the project had provided an additional 42,000 household toilets and 192 institutional WASH facilities, as well as about 7,000 household water connections to low-income households in GAMA and GKMA. Also, the project targeted 5,000 piped household connections to reach 75,000 beneficiaries and over 50 per cent has so far been completed.

In terms of institutional toilets, 120 facilities were targeted to reach 154,000 beneficiaries in schools and healthcare facilities. The latest updates show that more than 90 per cent of those facilities have been completed.

As part of the additional financing arrangements, an additional 12,000 household toilets were to be constructed within GAMA to serve 72,000 beneficiaries. This target has been exceeded by 30 per cent.

The target to construct 30 additional institutional toilet facilities to reach 39,600 beneficiaries within GAMA has also been exceeded by 100 per cent.

The additional financing phase of the project also targeted 5,000 piped household connections to reach 75,000 beneficiaries, and 75 per cent have been completed. Also, all software activities have been completed for the construction of a bio-digester sludge treatment plant in GAMA.

Bio-digester

Mr Asiedu told the Daily Graphic that one of the indelible footprints of the project was the promotion of the bio-digester toilets technology, which had become the preferred option for all Ghanaians.

One of the biodigester Lavatories constructed under the GAMA-SWP

The 2021 population and housing census estimated that the number of bio-digester toilets in the country was about 130,000.

“This surge in the usage of the bio-digester toilets has been largely attributed to the GAMA project’s active promotion of the technology, which provides on-site sludge containment and treatment solutions to households and minimise their cost of dislodging. This technology has reduced the incidence of indiscriminate dumping of sludge into many water bodies and the oceans untreated,” he added.

Mr Asiedu said the general acceptance of the bio-digester toilets was because “it is effective; it is cheaper, which is about a quarter of the price of a septic tank; it uses less space; and is easy to construct.”

He said in a bid to ensure best practices and sustainability of the bio-digester technology, the GAMA Secretariat had collaborated with other stakeholders to develop and launch guidelines and standards for the construction of bio-digester toilets.

Capacity building

In addition, Mr Asiedu said the project had started building the capacity of local artisans by establishing the bio-digester construction and training centre at Ada College of Education.

“Also, the country’s WASH Sector Development Programme had been developed while processes were underway to revise the National Sanitation Policy to improve the sector,” he added.

Mr Asiedu said above all innovations, the project facilitated the development of an Integrated Sanitation and Drainage Master Plan to guide medium- to long-term sanitation development in GAMA and a water supply master plan for Greater Kumasi.

Recognition

Undoubtedly, the impact of the GAMA-SWP project has warranted several awards. The latest is the National Project Management Excellence Awards where the project Coordinator, George Asiedu, was awarded as the runner-up in the Project Manager of the Year category.

The project was also touted as one of the flagship projects by the World Bank and awarded the most impactful WASH project over the past decade by the Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation (CONIWAS) in 2018.

GAMA-SWP also won the most impactful WASH project in the Ashanti Region by the Ashanti Region Ghana Journalists Association (2023). In 2023, it won the Engineering Excellence Award from the Ghana Institution of Engineering (2024) for implementing engineering solutions.

Way forward

Touching on the way forward, Mr Asiedu said it was important to establish a regulatory body that would regulate sanitation services in the country.

“And that is why we have been advocating for the National Sanitation Authority to be established. There is a Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources; we have the policies, we have the strategic plans that will put us into achieving SDG 6, but we need a regulatory body that will regulate all of us,” he stated.