WASH News West Africa
News feed maintained by information specialists from IRC and partners.
Liberia: Water sector faces “deadly” financing gap
29 Jun 10
Poor sanitation and bad hygiene cause the deaths of one in five Liberians, according to the World Health Organization, but despite NGO lobbying efforts to put clean water and sanitation high on donors’ and the government’s agenda, the sector still faces a “deadly financing gap” says NGO Oxfam. Three out of four Liberians have no [...]
Ghana: Zoomlion’s “Bola” revolution!
24 Jun 10
Waste management, a major component of environmental sanitation has over the years been a headache for Ghanaian governments, local authorities and people in general. While the growth of towns and cities has resulted in increased population, coupled with increased socio-economic activities, there has not been a corresponding increase in essential logistics for effective and efficient [...]
Nigeria: Installing toilets to reduce blindness
23 Jun 10
Lack of access to clean toilets or an adequate water supply, living in close proximity to animals, and poor public health awareness have helped put 2.3 million people in northern Nigeria’s Borno State at risk of contracting trachoma, a bacterial infection causing blindness. But practising simple good hygiene and stopping open defecation can significantly reduce [...]
Ghana: USAID and CHF Promote Sanitation Through Fun Games
23 Jun 10
Corporative Housing Foundation International (CHF) is facilitating the implementation of projects to improve water accessibility and enhanced sanitation for the urban poor in Ghana. Under the name Ghana Water Access and Sanitation and Hygiene for urban poor (Wash-up), the projects which are underway in Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi are both under the Africa Urban- Poor to [...]
Ghana: VC calls for consistency in the maintenance of water systems
16 Jun 10
Professor Kwasi Kwafo Adarkwa, Vice-Chancellor of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), has called for consistency in the maintenance of the country’s water systems. This, he said had become necessary to tackle the growing rate at which water and sanitation facilities provided for the communities are becoming dysfunctional. He was addressing the opening [...]
Ghana: Water Resources Commission formulates new water management policy
15 Jun 10
The Water Resources Commission (WRC) is formulating a policy document on how buffer zones are to be created, protected and maintained on Ghana’s water bodies. The policy, known as the Buffer Zone Policy, was made known by Mrs Adwoa Munkua Darko, Public Relations Officer of the WRC, during an awareness creation workshop organized by the [...]
Niger: thirsty as well as hungry
11 Jun 10
A bad harvest season has punished the rural and urban poor across Niger, but food insecurity has been compounded by a critical lack of water in the worst-hit southern province of Zinder. “The women with whom I’ve spoken in villages have said water is their first problem,” UN Under-Secretary General John Holmes told journalists during [...]
Africa: WASH United introduces the World Toilet Cup game
10 Jun 10
Hamburger SV football player Jonathan Pitroipa played the “World Toilet Cup” game in his home country of Burkina Faso where he launched the WASH United campaign on 4 June 2010. First introduced in November 2009 during the second Africa Water Week in Johannesburg, South Africa, the “World Toilet Cup” game makes a symbolic effort at tackling [...]
Africa: self-help sanitation for more than 2 million people
01 Jun 10
More than 2 million people and over 740 schools in Africa are getting improved sanitation. In a new five-year programme, development organisation Plan International will expand its existing self-help sanitation programme in six African countries (Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia and Malawi) and introduce it in two other countries (Ghana and Niger). The programme [...]
Ghana: Keta to phase out pan latrines
28 May 10
Keta Municipal Assembly is to face out all 550 pan latrines in the area and replace them with KVIPs or water closet toilets under a four-year Health and Sanitation Scheme. A cesspool emptier and a permanent solid and liquid waste disposal site are to be acquired under the scheme as part of a four- year [...]
