Director, Water, Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing (MWRWH), Mr. Emmanuel Addae, has called on all actors in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector in Ghana to reposition themselves in order to surmount the funding challenges in the sector as well as partner with the government to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on water and sanitation by 2030.
Mr. Addae said the theme: “Repositioning CSOs towards achieving the WASH SDGs: The Role of Sector Partners” was apt and appropriate for this year’s mole conference, especially the challenging times the sector finds itself now.
According to Mr. Addae, realising the need to reposition the WASH sector means that, there was an admission that the sector was not well positioned now and that there was the urgent need for actors in the WASH sector to strategise effectively to ensure that they put their feet in firm ground and to do that, required the sector to forge stronger relationships with the government.
“We have to find out whether our relationship with government is good enough, are we transparent? Are we accountable? Are we diligent in what we do? and do we provide data even for our own parent organisation and for that matter the Government, I believe these are some of the questions we need to ask ourselves as we reposition the ourselves,” Mr. Addae emphasised.
Mr. Addae who was speaking at the 27th Edition of the Mole Conference on 22nd November, 2016 at Big Ada in Greater Accra Region, explained that, Ghana is currently implementing the SDGs and the success of its implementation required the collective efforts of all sector actors including CONIWAS.
Our dear country achieved was able to achieve the SDG on water and I can say, we were among a few in sub-Saharan Africa that achieved this feat, we therefore that we can rely on CONIWAS to help the government to achieve the SDGs on water come 2030,” Mr. Addae added.
On dwindling funding for the WASH sector, the Director, Water, charged sector actors to make cost benefit allowance for every funding they received from donors as well as ensure that their projects are of great use to the people they serve.
He said resource allocation for the WASH sector has been dwindling for several reasons, one of which he cited is Ghana’s current status as a lower middle income country and as a result of that donors are now turning their attention to other least developed countries and that Mr. Addae added posed a great challenge to the sector.
In view of that, Mr. Addae urged stakeholders at this year’s Mole Conference to make cogent suggestions and strategies that would effectively mitigate the challenges in the short term and combat the challenges in the longer term.
On the Water Sector Strategic Plan, the Director, Water, of the MWRWH indicated the plan was being rolled out and it was proper for stakeholders in the sector to actively partake in its implementation as well as enable them to consort as they plan for water activities in the coming years.
Mr. Addae, however, expressed disquiet about Ghana’s poor performance in the SDGs on sanitation, despite the strong showing the country put up in the area of water and said water and sanitation was intertwine and therefore appealed to stakeholders to put their wheels to the shoulders to ensure that Ghana achieved its objectives in sanitation by the year 2030.
Mr. Addae, who officially declared the conference opened, called on participants to deliberate and work towards issues that will ensure that, Ghana does not only achieve its water for all policy, but improve sanitation and hygiene by 2025.
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