PRESS RELEASE

24^th Mole Conference to examine Partnership for Scaling-up Sustainable Sanitation Services 

The 24^th edition of the longest running annual Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector event in Ghana, the Mole Conference, is scheduled to take place in the Ashanti Regional Capital, Kumasi from August 13-16, 2013. This year’s conference is on the theme: ''Building Effective Partnership for Scaling-Up Sustainable Sanitation Services in Ghana."

The theme is more appropriate in the context of Ghana because of the serious sanitation challenges the country currently faces. Poor individual and community attitude, poor and inadequate facilities, socio-cultural issues, weak institutional support mechanisms, weak enforcement of bye-laws, poor sanitation financing are all contributory factors to the poor  sanitation status in Ghana.

The 2013 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey(MICS, 2013) Report estimates Ghana’s improved sanitation (safe toilet) access rate at 15% as at 2012, against the 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of 54%; at the same time the open defecation rate of the country is 23%. Whereas the improved sanitation coverage for urban Ghana is 21%, rural Ghana is 9%.  In terms of regional distribution for open defecation, the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions score 9% and 10% respectively while the Upper East, Upper West and Northern regions have open defecation rates of 89%, 72% and 71% respectively.

The current coverage rate for improved sanitation implies that 1 in 4 Ghanaians defecate in the open every day. It also implies that with the coverage rate of 1 percentage point per annum, it is likely to take 40 years for Ghana to reach the MDG target of 54% for sanitation and another 46 years to reach universal coverage. Of course, this is based on the assumption that there will not be significant increase in population during this period. As if this is not enough, the largest of all the open defecations are locations – rivers/streams, bushes and open pits where raw faeces are dumped. This is a common practice in all regional, and district capitals and relatively big and small towns where no facilities exist for the treatment of faecal matter.

Clearly, the problem of sanitation is huge, and can only be tackled head-on with close collaboration and  effective partnership backed by effective resource deployment by community members, traditional authority, local government authority, national government, private sector and development partners.

CONIWAS, which hosts the Mole series, hopes that the outcomes of Mole XXIV Conference and the activities of the NGO coalition in general will be important in highlighting these critical issues at the District and community levels, and supporting communities to implement simple and sustainable measures to raise funds.

The key objectives for Mole XXIV are therefore to:

1. Explore options and opportunities for sustainable sanitation delivery in Ghana.
2. Examine  public-private partnership  models for accelerated sanitation delivery   
3. Ascertain  relevance  of  operation, maintenance, and  user fees as financing options for improved sanitation delivery
4. Share knowledge and  expertise on sanitation delivery  
5. Provide recommendations for  policy advocacy and  influencing

Detailed examination of issues would be carried out around the following four sub-themes:

1. Public- Private Partnership for Scaling-Up Sustainable Sanitation Delivery
2. The Role of MMDAs in Sanitation Service Delivery
3. Community's Perspective in solving Sanitation Challenges: opportunities and realities
4. Sanitation and health linkages: A way out of Ghana’s Sanitation Challenges?

Finally, the conference Approach and Methodology would include knowledge sharing sessions, structured and expert panel discussions, exhibitions, structured media events, conference communiqué and report.

-End-

Note to Editors:

Mole Conference is one of the biggest Multi-Stakeholder annual platforms in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector in Ghana. The Platform, named after the venue of the maiden edition, Mole in the Northern Region of Ghana, is organised by the Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation (CONIWAS) and brings together sector practitioners from NGOs, Government, Private Operators, Networks, CBOs, CSOs, etc. to dialogue, learn and share knowledge/ information on specific themes that affect the sector.

The Mole Conference Series has witnessed consistent growth of interest and importance since its inception in 1989 among civil society, policy makers, local government and development partners alike. The Mole Series or Mole, as it is known today, has evolved from what was primarily an NGO forum into perhaps the most important multi-stakeholder platform within the WASH Sector in Ghana. Over the years, the conference has attracted government actors, donors and other stakeholders (including local authorities) on an annual basis to deliberate on critical issues affecting the sector.

For enquiries, clarifications and interviews, please contact Mr Ben Arthur through 0302 250816/0240210584/0206527445 or coniwas@yahoo.com.