Data has shown that 76 per cent of households are a risk of drinking water contaminated with faecal matter, although some progress has been made to ensure that children and families in every part of Ghana have access to safe drinking water.

Again, the government’s Coordinated Programme of Economic and Social Development Policies identifies water and sanitation as a key area of focus under the social development theme to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water under goal 6 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

The 2017 United Nations statistics reveal that only 14 per cent of Ghana’s population has access to basic sanitation since sanitation has been structurally underfunded and less prioritised.

The founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Global Media Foundation, Raphael Godlove Ahenu, said these at a stakeholders’ engagement in Sunyani on policy amendment and financial support for Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) at the levels.

The meeting was held under the Community Integration and System Strengthening Project (CSSIP) against skin NTDs in Ghana being supported by Anesvad Foundation.

The overall goal of the intervention is to reduce morbidity and the psychosocial impacts of skin-related NTDs through an enhanced accountability and mobilisation approach among the three endemic districts in the Bono and Ahafo regions.

The three beneficiary districts include Sunyani West and Tain in the Bono Region and Asunafo North Municipality in Ahafo Region.

Mr Ahenu noted that many NTDs thrive under poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, unsafe water and limited health care.

He said improving access to WASH is one of the key and most sustainable strategies to control and prevent NTDs, but NTD control programmes often give little attention to WASH aspects.

The CEO of GLOMEF called on the government to fulfil its commitment to allocate 0.5 per cent of GDP to sanitation in line with the eThekwini declaration, which makes 11 important commitments by African governments to improve the performance of the sanitation and hygiene sector.

In his address, the Executive Director of Tim Africa Aid Ghana, Isaac Kwabena Kakpeibe, said the project has already trained 30 community-based champions to lead community-level advocacy and behaviour change communication to further create awareness about NTDs.

He mentioned misconceptions about NTDs, religious beliefs, poor attitude of communities towards NTDs issues, poor sanitation, water and hygiene cultural beliefs, which see NTDs as spiritual, political bottlenecks and passive attitude of some district assemblies as factors fueling the disease.

The CSSIP is being implemented by a consortium of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) namely Tim Africa Aid Ghana, Global Media Foundation, and Indigenous Women Empowerment, at the cost of €180,000.

The project will also help to improve access and coverage of 6,000 vulnerable people to quality, timely care services on skin-related NTDs in the selected districts by the end of 2024.