2014 Open Defecation Free target unlikely

Volta Region is unlikely to attain the March 2014 Open Defecation Free (ODF) status it set for itself despite some significant successes.

Mr Francis Ganyaglo, deputy Volta Regional Minister set the target when he addressed the closing session of a training workshop on Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) in May this year.

But Mr Kweku Tsekpetse, National Co-ordinator, (CLTS) did not think the target was attainable that soon.

Mr Tsekpetse made the assessment at a meeting with the Volta Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Committee on Sanitation (V-RICCS) in Ho to discuss the feedback from monitoring and support visits to communities in four districts, implementing the CLTS project in the Volta region.

So far 174 out of 200 OD communities in the four districts have attained ODF status since 2012 when the programme began, Mr Francis Abotsi, Volta Regional Director of the Environmental Health Department said. Mr Tsekpetse observed that the Volta Region has stood out in the drive towards becoming an ODF success story in the country with greater efforts and adequate resources.

He said some of the lessons picked from the Volta region during the monitoring visits included swapping of team members to prevent community members becoming too familiar with facilitators.

Field facilitators were based in Area Councils with committed staff and enthusiastic Natural Leaders (NLs) in the communities.

Mr Tsekpetse said findings included weak co-ordination at the district and Area Council levels, inadequate and unreliable funding, selection of CLTS communities, capacity gaps.

Others were inability of some officers to ride motor bikes, inadequate follow up visits from districts due to late release of funds and non-availability of technical support to community members, absence of action plans and follow up on action plans where they existed, inadequate preparation towards communities at the other side of the Volta Lake.

He suggested regular monitoring visits by core RICCS, use of community register to track the activities of facilitators, strengthening and review of District Inter Agency Co-ordinating Committees on Sanitation (DICCS) and Municipal Inter-Agency Co-ordination Committees on Sanitation MICCS.

Communities should also be given adequate technical back up support as well as resource mobilization and logistics supply.

The CLTS is a joint initiative by the Government of Ghana and UNICEF to encourage some selected communities in the Volta, Northern, Central, Upper East and Upper East regions to eliminate Open Defecation under the water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programme.

In May this year the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD), UNICEF and CLTS Foundation Global, Kolkata, India, organised a workshop in Ho for over 100 stakeholders to get them on board the drive to stop open defecation in the region.