Keeping Accra, Ghana clean - Commitment of Graphic, partners
I applaud the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) for the launch of the ‘Keep Ghana Clean’ campaign with its partners Zoomlion and the Ministry of Environment and Sanitation.
With the rainy season here now, this campaign, if sustained, should help mitigate the effects of the rains on the national capital in particular, where there is the perennial problem of flooding and its accompanying disasters, not to talk about the outbreak of diseases such as cholera.
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In 2010, the UN General Assembly recognised access to sanitation and safe and clean drinking water as a human right and called for international efforts to help countries provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation.
The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 6.2 calls for adequate and equitable sanitation for all.
The target is tracked with the indicator of “safely managed sanitation services” – use of an improved type of sanitation facility safely treated off site.
Question
That the question of poor sanitation in Ghana is one major headache of successive governments is no more news.
It is the reason why when the President declared in April 2017 that “the commitment we are making and which I want you all to make with me is that by the time we end our four-year term, Accra is going to be the cleanest city in Africa”, he was applauded, though others wondered how it was going to happen; probably because of the failures of previous efforts.
Major challenges
Telesphore Kabera of the College of Science and Technology, Rwanda in his book ‘Solid Waste Management in Rwanda: Status and Challenges’ touches on the general challenges of African and developing countries whose cities continue to grow without commensurate investments in waste management plans and infrastructure.
The problem associated with solid, liquid and toxic waste management in Africa has mainly arisen from urbanisation in the developing countries, especially in Africa.
The rapid growth of cities is one of the characteristics of urbanisation in developing countries.
When dealing with Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM), economically developing countries encounter the following typical problems: (i) inadequate service coverage and operational inefficiencies of services; (ii) limited utilisation of recycling activities; (iii) inadequate landfill disposal and (iv) inadequate management of hazardous and healthcare waste.
The truth is that the sanitation issues in Ghana, particularly Accra, appear to be daunting, requiring hydra-headed approach from multi-sectorial angles.
The causes span the lack of the planning of our communities in the cities, behavioural and attitudinal challenges, pure lack of knowledge of the individual and household waste handling to the lack of political will on the part of city authorities.
Public education, strategic involvement
The question has often arisen about the way most Ghanaians treat waste disposal, but this behavioural challenge can be cured through public education and the enforcement of the by-laws of the assemblies.
The Journal of Environmental Science and Public Health 3 (2019) cites Sylvia Adipah’s ‘Challenges and Improvement Opportunities for Accra City MSWM System’, part of which says public environmental education is low.
According to the researcher, the investigations conducted indicated that enormous opportunities existed for city authorities and government to educate the people on environmental sanitation and waste handling, including the electronic and print media.
The report says considering the wide spatial coverage of both the electronic and print media in Ghana, government-sponsored educational programmes on environmental sanitation or waste disposal through the media can have far-reaching impacts on the population.
In Accra city, municipal waste departments are convinced of the usefulness of the media in educating the public.
However, the local governments lack the funds to sponsor media programmes and so look up to the central government to do this.
Indeed, that is what makes the GCGL’s partnership key to this current agenda.
Conclusion
The world is now experiencing private and public sector partnership to provide the services for domestic waste collection, disposal and management.
However, for this partnership to succeed and to show an impact on total service coverage and environmental cleanliness, it will have to be supported by formal rules, policies, legislations and regulations created, enforced and maintained by governments.
The later initiative will provide the required impetus to encourage people for more investment and improved service quality to deal with the problem.
Since the role of the media is key in this enterprise, might I even suggest that the GCGL ropes in other media groups in this crusade for a bigger impact.
I also believe that the same efforts being put into the ‘galamsey’ fight must be channelled into this waste management agenda and such efforts must include behavioural change and the involvement of the general populace through stakeholders such as schools, churches, mosques and even political parties who keep promising us development.
The writer is a journalist and MD of ITV; adjunct lecturer at the University of Applied Management (UAM), Ghana Campus and Jayee University College (JUC).