SWA HLM: ANOTHER MERE TALK SHOP FOR AFRICAN POLITICIANS? Two and a half billion people – over a third of the world’s population – live without adequate sanitation facilities. Nearly 800 million people still do not have access to an improved source of drinking water protected from outside contamination. Despite the great need and potentially enormous benefits, the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector has historically faced major obstacles. Due to this alarming situation, UNICEF, on behalf of the SWA Partnership, in April 23, 2010 Convened the first ever High Level Meeting (HLM) which was hosted by the World Bank at their headquarters in Washington DC with the view to bring all sector players together to fine a lasting solution to this menace. According to a report from SWA HLM Secretariat, the 2012 High Level Meeting which is second in the series was unprecedented. The meeting attracted over 50 ministers and high-level participants’ .it said the increase in number demonstrated the increase in political prioritization of WASH that SWA seeks to achieve. The annual Progress Update of the 2012 SWA HLM commitments, released in August last year, shows that significant gains have already been achieved, such as increased budgets, strengthened national planning and country-level dialogue among ministers, technical stakeholders, civil society, donors and development banks. But the big question lingering in the minds/lips of many Africans, especially Ghanaians is how effective has this SWA HLM platform been in addressing WASH issues in Ghana instance, since its inception four years ago? A research data available shows that in Ghana about 3.5 million people are still without access to safe water. In rural populations, lack of access to safe water is as high as 20 per cent and staggering 87 per cent of the population (more than 21 million people) does not have access to adequate sanitation. THIRD SWA HIGH LEVEL MEETING (HLM) The third SWA High Level Meeting (HLM) will be held on Friday 11 April 2014, if all things been equal and as usual our representatives will be fully represented to be captured by cameras from the various television stations across the globe with the poor tax payers’ money. What is Africa and Ghana to be precise going to present to the rest of the world this time round at meeting. When Ghana joined other thirty- nine (39) countries at the first HLM, some commitments were made and the world applauded for us. The out-come of that meeting saw Ghana coming up with the “Ghana 2010 SWA Compact which spelt out in details what government “shall” do between 2011 and 2015 to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Key among that sugar coated pledges were: 1. 75 per cent water coverage across the country and 2. 54 per cent coverage for much improved sanitation and hygiene, this particular programme was launched by no other person than the then Vice President of Ghana, who is now President of Ghana, H E John Mahama so there is no way I will believe that he is not privy to those pledges. Before this, the then Minister of Finance Dr. Kwabena Duffuor who represented Ghana at the median edition of the SWA HLM far away in Washington DC, pledged on behalf of government to prove 400 million United States dollars each year starting from 2011 to the WASH sector in order to meet targets as well as improve service delivery throughout the country. What have become of all these pledges by government? BROKEN PROMISES It is a fact that not a cent of the supposed $400 million was released to the ministries and departments and agencies responsible for the WASH sector and I wonder if there is any such fund at all. Again it is on record that the 50,000,000.00 Ghana Cedis seed money earmarked for Strategic Environmental Sanitation Investment Plan (SESIP) approved by cabinet in 2013 was not released and in the same vein, the one million Ghana Cedis allocated to the Environmental Health and Sanitation Division (ESHSD) under the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development for goods and assets also in 2013 was not released, and the list of broken promises goes on and on. I strongly believe that if all such allocations pledged by both government and donors have been redeemed since 2011, though governments make commitments to increase budgets for WASH through national plans they don’t necessarily allocate the required funds. If they really do, we wouldn’t have been pine at terrifying 13 per cent sanitation coverage as captured in the latest World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) interim joint Monitoring Platform (JMP) report. Available reports from the SWA HLM Secretariat revealed that donors’ commitments to fund WASH were not followed through. In the period between 2002 to 2010, donors did not release US$17 billion of the US$54 billion of aid committed to the water and sanitation sector. For some decades now, there haven’t been any major expansion carry out by the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) yet we are told that we have achieved 75 per cent water coverage. How did we achieve this? Because communities that I know do not have access to potable water some fifteen years ago are still without it, so where from the 75 percentage coverage from? WHERE WE FALL SHORT Over the years government upon government fall to invests massively in the WASH sector which has compounded the current situation. Again government fined it difficult to plan and make decisions about where investments in WASH should go due to the lack of reliable and accessible information. I am force to believe that Ghana does not have reliable data to determine who lacks services or, if they have been provided services in the past, what condition the facilities are in. Detailed data at the levels of national, regional and community are not there. The lack of these data makes investment allocations difficult and complicates coordination of activities. Again mechanisms to hold governments and donors to account for their promises are often weak, and too few platforms exist for citizens and users to be consulted and to feedback on the performance of WASH service providers. For instance, in 2012, the Ghana Watson Journalists Network (GWJN) have made several efforts to track pledges made by government during the second SWA HLM and the progress it was making in WASH sector but the key people from the various ministries were not will to disclose any information regarding how much they have receive if any from government as well as what they spend the funds on. Apart from GWJN, other core stakeholders like Water Aid, and CONIWAS just to mention a few were also not successful in getting information from the powers that be. If such deliberate impediment were been put in place to frustrate people how can we develop as a country? THE WAY FORWARD Government as well as donors should honor all outstanding pledges made to the WASH sector. We want to see massive improvement in this area. Government as early as possible should inject the needed funds to expand and replace weak and out molded machinery. This I know will bring tremendous improvement in the sector. With vigorous expansion and total overhaul at the various agencies, department and ministry, communities like Adentan, Madina, Hatsoo, Ashongman, Kasoa and kwabenya will experience the feel of having potable water flowing through their tap. These communities and many others all around the country have been denied of their basic right due to poor planning, lack of capital injection, and misappropriation of funds by past and present governments as well as negligence/ incompetents corrupt public officials. If not Kasoa which is just a walking distance to Waija will not be without potable pipe bone water all this while. Another thing we can all do as people who have the country at heart is to hold our appointing authorities accountable from time to time to ensure that what they promise or the constitution mandates them to do is exactly what they do. This is what I call citizens participation. We should keep on mounting pressure upon pressure on them till we see that the right things are done.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 14:44:46 +0000
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