WASH News West Africa
News feed maintained by information specialists from IRC and partners.
Sierra Leone: Communities take charge, one latrine at a time
05 Mar 09
Kadiatou Samura proudly showed her pristine new toilet to her Member of Parliament, the leader of her chiefdom and the head of the UN Children’s Fund’s [UNICEF] district office as they toured her village, Kamayintin, in Sierra Leone’s Bombali district. The village was celebrating its status as the chiefdom’s fifth to be declared “free of [...]
Gambia: country has achieved MDG for water, says government official
05 Mar 09
The secretary of state for Fisheries, Water Resources and National Assembly Matters, Yankuba Touray [...] revealed that The Gambia has attained the MDGs in terms of water. He noted that 84.1 percent of The Gambia’s rural population have access to water supply. According to Touray, the cabinet, in 2007, had approved the first national water [...]
Ghana, Central Region: Coastal Dwellers Cry for Toilet Facilities
05 Mar 09
The people of Elmina in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem District of the Central Region (KEEA) have made a distress plea to government to provide more toilet facilities for coastal dwellers. Such a move, they argued, would not only reduce the spread of diseases in fishing communities but ultimately help areas such as Elmina increase their revenue from [...]
Nigeria: A Peep Into the Life of Abuja Water Vendors - We’re the Real Water Board, Says Mai Ruwa
05 Mar 09
The FCT Water Board authorities are always chasing Mai Ruwa, the name for local water vendors, away, particularly from the highbrow areas of Maitama, Asokoro and Wuse II. {Since] the Board [...] seems to be finding it difficult to meet the federal capital’s water needs. [...] residents readily welcome Mai Ruwa. There is hardly any [...]
Nigeria: International Team Helps Bring Water to Rural Community
05 Mar 09
[A] U.S.-assisted team is developing a safe and reliable drinking water source from a 150-meter-deep well and then piping the clean water into the Adu Achi village [in southeastern Nigeria]. Residents of this 3,000-person community now walk more than six kilometers several times a day to a contaminated stream to collect drinking water, wash cassava (their [...]
Ghana: President Mills Reminded of His Promise On Water
05 Mar 09
The Essential Services Platform (ESP) has reminded Prof. John Evans Atta-Mills of his election promise to renationalize the provision of water supply to ensure quality, accessible and affordable water to all Ghanaians.The group says the crisis state of the water provision is a reflection of the monumental failure of Aqua Vitens Rand Limited, the management [...]
Ghana: WASHCost Visits Daily Guide
05 Mar 09
The Non-Governmental Organization, WASHCost, made up of a nine-member delegation paid a courtesy call to the offices of Daily Guide, Ghana’s most widely circulated private newspaper on Tuesday [24 February 2009].They included the Project Assistant of WASHCost, Michele Adjei-Fah, Janet Alamisi Dabire, a Ghanaian journalist, Martine Sawadogo, Herve Tiendrebeogo, Jules Sow and Pascal Dabou all [...]
World Bank Water Week 2009 Africa presentations online
05 Mar 09
Water Week took place at the World Bank headquarters in Washington DC from February 17-20, 2009. The event was organized by the Water Anchor in partnership with the Water Sector Board. Titled “Tackling Global Water Challenges”, the discussions focused on the urgent challenges currently faced by the water community including inter alia: adapting to climate [...]
Mali: Raising money and hygiene standards
05 Mar 09
Women in one of the poorest areas of Mali’s capital, Bamako, have found a way to tackle hygiene issues and earn money at the same time - by making soap.[...] “Hygiene standards in the Nafadji [slum] area of town were very very low, due to lack of infrastructure and because of ignorance,” Djibril Coulibaly, hygiene [...]
Ghana: COHRE publishes a rights-based review of water and sanitation sector
05 Mar 09
The Right to Water Programme (RWP) of the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) has released on 23 February 2009, a report on the Ghanaian water and sanitation sector. This publication reviews the existing legal and policy framework of the Ghanaian water and sanitation sector using international human rights standards. The objective of the [...]
