Symposium on Water and Culture opens

Accra, Feb. 16, GNA - Countries within the sub-Sahara Region must adopt governance systems that will enable them to mobilize their water resources in an effective and sustainable manner, the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Mr Koichiro Matsuura said on Friday.

Addressing the opening of a three-day symposium on water and culture in Accra, he said the fundamental problem about water was not shortage, but its management, use and distribution. Mr Matsuura noted that, at present, less than four per cent of available water resources in sub-Sahara Africa were used, only one-fifth of irrigable land was irrigated and less than 20 per cent of potential hydropower was drawn upon.

He said strengthening the capacity of countries to mobilize these resources would have an immense impact on all development efforts. Mr Matsuura pointed out that water was increasingly acknowledged as the very basis for sustainable development and improving it would impact positively on poverty reduction, health, education and gender equality. The symposium, organised by the Ministry of Chieftaincy Affairs with support from UNESCO, is being attended by traditional and community leaders, environmental groups, Ghana water stakeholders, academia and representatives from Benin, Cote d'Ivoire and Togo.

They are expected to dialogue on how to bring cultural considerations into the effective management of water to ensure its sustainable development particularly communities misusing the resource. Mr Matsuura stressed that the world was faced with urgent and grave challenges as 18 per cent of the world's population lacked access to safe drinking water, 40 per cent was deprived of basic sanitation and everyday, some 6,000 people, most of them children, died of water-related diseases.

He said in modern times, approaches to water resource management had been overwhelmingly technology-driven, but while science and technology were clearly important for understanding water cycle and use, they could not be considered in isolation from wider social and cultural factors.

"Water touches all aspects of human existence 85 it has a powerful cultural presence, an inspiration for art, an element of faith and a fundamental aspect of traditional values and practices." Mr Matsuura said UNESCO was working hard to place culture at the centre of global freshwater debate.

Papa Owusu Ankoma, Minister of Education, Science and Sports, said good cultural practices could lead to the preservation and conservation of water.

He noted that traditional practices and beliefs that had been adhered to across decades had preserved most water bodies, citing instances where it was a taboo to visit certain streams on particular days. Mr Sampson Kweku Boafo, Minister of Chieftaincy Affairs, stressed the need to recognise the role of traditional leaders in the preservation of cultural heritage.

"We need to adopt a new approach to understanding culture and acknowledge the critical role it plays in the sustainable development of a country." Mr Boafo said Ghana@50 presented a unique opportunity to identify personalities who had played enormous role in the preservation and promotion of cultural heritage.

Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori Panin II, Okyenhene, said the world was already stressed with hunger and diseases with its attendant population growth, adding that if the rate of growth was properly managed, then water could be conserved. He decried the destruction of the environment and contamination of water bodies by mining companies.

"I am not against mining but such companies must operate within the parameters of social justice and invest significant quantum of their profits in the communities."

The Okyenhene argued that development projects must be owned and managed by the local people to make them responsible, saying, "most people misuse community resources thinking that they are state property".

He said decentralisation must be meaningfully programmed to empower the people, especially women, to register in their mind that they were part and parcel of governance.