Ghana

IRC is committed to supporting Ghana to achieve its national vision of providing sustained and appropriate water and sanitation services to all citizens in 2025, in order to improve livelihoods and reduce poverty, and to make sure that this is done using water resources which are developed and used sustainably at the local level. Since 2011, we have had a branch office in Ghana. Major IRC programmes are:

Water services that last (Triple-S)
WASHCost
Support to the Resource Centre Network Ghana

Factsheet on Ghana

This factsheet gives a short overview of IRC activities and expertise in projects taking place in Ghana. Also included are some facts on the water, sanitation and hygiene situation in the country.

GHANA_fast_facts_IRC.pdf (1.8 MB)

CWSA and IRC develop indicators to evaluate sustainable rural water services in Ghana

In order to develop a framework for analyzing and documenting issues related to sustainability of rural water services in Ghana, the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA), in collaboration with the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre Ghana, through the Sustainable Services at Scale (Triple-S) Project Ghana, has come up with a set of service level and sustainability indicators for rural water services in Ghana. This document gives an overview of these draft indicators.

Go to the Triple-S web site

Interview on monitoring water services with Clement Tumfuga Bugase (CWSA) Ghana

In future, CWSA would like any project we undertake in the water sector to have sustainability engrained, streamlined right from day one….

Monitoring of water services delivery is a key factor for sustainability and water for all. This was the key theme of the monitoring and evaluation session at the 6^th World Water Forum in Marseille in March 2012. It was observed that most approaches to monitoring focus on coverage measured in terms of numbers of systems built and people served. They seldom take into account the functionality of systems and their sustainability. The commitment coming out of the session was that by 2020, more than half of the countries in each continent have organised, inclusive and reliable reporting mechanisms for water supply services in rural and urban areas. In this inverview Mr Clement Bugase, Chief Executive of Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) Ghana, shares views on the steps that Ghana is taking in this direction.

On Friday 3rd February 2012, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre celebrated the official opening of its office in Accra, Ghana. This was an historic event for IRC, as this is the first office IRC has established outside The Netherlands since its foundation in 1968. The office will be led by Mrs Vida Duti, the country director for Ghana.

The outgoing Minister for Water Resources, Works and Housing (MWRWH) in Ghana, the Honourable Alban Sumana Bagbin (MP), led the opening ceremony by acknowledging the contribution of IRC towards the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector in the country, in terms of both technical and knowledge assistance.

Interview with Vida Duti, IRC Country Director in Ghana, on ways to fund rural water repairs

Vida Duti, the new IRC Country Director from January 2012, says that lack of money in village accounts to carry out repairs is one of the major reasons for service failure.

IRC Ghana programme

Since the early 1990s, IRC has worked with stakeholders in Ghana’s water, sanitation and hygiene sector to define problems, research solutions and implement change. In 2007, Ghana became one of four IRC focus countries in Africa.

In Ghana, IRC aims to stimulate sector learning and improved governance in four sets of activities: