The “Urban Resilience by Building and Applying New Evidence in Wash” (Urban-Wash) project is starting in Ghana. Initiated by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2021, it aims to promote policies and programmes in water, sanitation and hygiene management in the face of current vulnerabilities, including climate change, in the US agency’s priority countries until 2026.
In Ghana, the project will be managed by Ghana Water Limited (GWL). “In March 2023, we signed a memorandum of understanding on the Usaid Urban-Wash project, in order to cooperate and coordinate research on its implementation in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale”, explains Clifford Braimah, the Managing Director of GWL. The partnership will focus on water quality management, water equity and unbilled water. “We want to leverage research, evidence and shared knowledge to transform the water, sanitation and hygiene landscape in Ghana,” adds Clifford Braimah.
According to the 2021 Population and Housing Census conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), 96.4% of the population living in urban and peri-urban areas already have access to a basic drinking water service. However, sanitation coverage is much lower, at just 25%, according to a report by the Copenhagen Consensus Center, an American think-tank that researches and publishes the “smartest solutions to the world’s biggest problems”.
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To improve these services, two research initiatives are planned. The first is a study of the effectiveness of subsidised water connections in Accra, Ghana’s largest city with a population of over 2.6 million. The result will be a report that will serve as a guide for similar initiatives in Africa. The second project is the Ghana Buy-In, which will focus on the cities of Tamale and Kumasi to improve water quality, equity and the management of unbilled water.
The Urban-Wash project, which is aligned with the Ghana Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources’ Wash sector development programme (2021-2030), will also enhance the GWL’s evidence base for better decision-making in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector.
Inès Magoum