National level alliance meeting held

The end of the Month Roundtable learning and sharing meeting of the Resource Center Network [RCN] in collaboration with the Water Directorate of the Ministry of Water Resource, Works and Housing has been organized.

The Meeting brought together participants from the Government, Water Sanitation and Hygiene[WASH] experts, Civil Society Organizations’ and the Media to deliberate on sanitation and environmental issues.

The Meeting was held under the Theme: Governance and Transparency Fund [GTF] program Evaluation and Impact Assessment in Ghana.

Participants also deliberated on the topic of Debriefing and Validation of Government of Ghana-UNICEF and WASH Assessment and Development of Gender Mainstreaming Guidelines and Toolkit.

Mr. Musah Ibrahim of the Water Aid- Ghana [WAG] said the GTF which has four main objectives and outputs and funded by the UK Aid formerly known as the DFID was jointly implemented by Water Aid and Fresh Water Action Network [FAN] , a Civil Society Organization[ CSO] .

The project has among others the objectives to engage Governments and service providers that are more accountable to citizens and end users in the WASH sector, a strong and well-functioning CSOs and CSO networks capable of influencing the design, implementation and evaluation of effective WASH policies at all levels.

It also has the objective to inform and empower people that are better able to demand accountability and responsiveness from governments and service providers in the WASH sector.

On the categorization of key respondents for the project, he said ‘’key informants were deliberately selected in consultation with WAG Policy Team essentially from participating institutions at national and decentralized levels with some percentage emphasis ratio’’.

The relevance of the GTF is to empower citizen groups and local communities to develop and use their voices to engage and interact with district authorities responsible for overall development of the local areas.

On the sustainability of the Project, he is of the view that creation of local intermediary structures as part of the Project can be sustained over time as the structures have been mainstreamed in community decision making processes.

On her part, Miss Patience Agyare Kwabe, a consultant for the Government of Ghana and UNICEF pointed out that the WASH Assessment and Development of Gender Mainstreaming Guidelines and Toolkit project was to provide some baseline information on gender mainstreaming in the WASH sector programming to support the development of a gender mainstreaming guidelines and toolkit.

She said the gender perspectives for the assessment seeks to include an understanding of gender roles and relations and how these affect and are affected by water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions , support greater sustainability and resource efficiency and can therefore improve the general wellbeing of beneficiaries.

It is to further Identify opportunities to address the practical and strategic gender needs using gender mainstreaming tools and analysis.

Among the key findings of the project is a limited and weak linkage between sector policies and strategies on gender equality and women’s involvement, General lack of gender analysis in WASH programming and projects and limited opportunities to target training and build capacity in gender mainstreaming, gender analysis and development and utilization.

She recommended for the establishment of clear linkages between Country Gender Policies and Strategies and WASH sector gender mainstreaming and that baseline information is required to formulate WASH service delivery, programs and projects in gender specific manner.