Minister calls for collaboration among stakeholders in water sector
The Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, has called on stakeholders in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) ecosystem to collaborate with government agencies to improve services to the public.
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She said partnerships, collaborations and sharing of data would help in creating synergy among all parties in the sector.
“Everybody is quoting figures and they are not the same.
There should be a common platform for data sharing among sector players”, Ms Dapaah added.
The minister made the call when the new Country Director for WaterAid Ghana, Ewurabena Yanyi-Akofur, paid a courtesy call on her in Accra.
She was accompanied by the Head of Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns, George Yorke; the acting Head of Sustainable Programmes, Sampson Tettey, and the Head of People and Organisational Development, Mawuko Freeman.
WaterAid is an international NGO dedicated exclusively to the provision of safe domestic water, sanitation and hygiene education to the world's poorest people with a vision of creating a world where everyone has access to safe water and effective sanitation.
The visit was for the new Country Director to officially introduce herself to the minister.
Projects
Ms Dapaah said that the ministry was currently embarking on eight major water projects across the country to ensure the provision of basic water supply to the citizenry.
“They include the Upper East water project, which is vertical instead of lateral, the Daboasi water project in Sekondi-Takoradi, which is being tampered with by galamseyers, the Agordome water project in Volta Region, the Damongo water project in the Savannah Region and the Tamale Water Project in the Northern Region, which would be the biggest water project by the government,” she said.
According to the minister, the key policy of the ministry was to undertake projects that would take care of underserved communities in the country, adding “water gives life and sanitation gives dignity”.
Collaborations
For her part, Ms Yanyi-Akofur said her visit was intended to strengthen collaborations between her organisation and the ministry.
“Even though I have worked in the WASH sector for 10 years, this is my first time working for an NGO in the sector”, the Country Director added.
She also said the organisation was working on a project dubbed: “The District Wide Approach” aimed at improving water sanitation and hygiene in various districts across the country.
The project is expected to take off in the Bongo District in the Upper East Region.
