WaterAid Ghana(WAG) has signed a GHC 2.5million agreement with the Bongo and Kassena Nankana West district assemblies in the Upper East Region to improve Maternal, Newborn and child health-care under its Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Public Health Project(WASH4PH).
The agreement seeks the commitment of all parties to work efficiently to improve access to water and sanitation services in communities.
Speaking to Citinews in Bolgatanga, Country Director of WaterAid, Abdul Nashiru Mohammed underscored the need to utilize WASH4PH services to address high maternal and newborn risk to infections at various health facilities without adequate safe water.
He said, health facilities and community members in the beneficiary districts will be trained on how to access and sustain the WASH4PH project.
“About 32 percent of health facilities in Ghana do not have adequate safe water to work with and currently neonatal mortality of 32 deaths per 1000 live births accounts for 40 percent of under-five mortality. We can only achieve the Ghana’s National Newborn Health Strategy and Action Plan(2014-2018) of reducing neonatal mortality by 5 percent if our centralize and decentralize structures of governance prioritize the WASH4PH project.”
Mr. Mohammed urged the beneficiary district chief executives to personally get involved by collaborating with WaterAid and other partners to ensure all the service providers deliver quality and timely services to the communities, schools and health facilities.
“The District assemblies need to provide the requisite resources to enable their officers to conduct effective supervision and monitoring in the field. If we want to ensure everyone has access to sustainable WASH services, then we must attach importance to value for money in all things we do as partners in development.
This starts with recruitment of service providers on merit, use of quality materials for construction, building according to specification while prioritizing the marginalized in society,” he added.
Mr. Mohammed also impressed on households to build and use safe toilets.
The District chief executives for Bongo and Kassena Nankana West Mr. Peter Ayinbisa and Clement Dandori pledged their commitment to ensure the success of the project in achieving the MDGs.
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By: Frederick Awuni/citifmonline.com/Ghana