National policy on water launched

Back (lead) Feb 28/2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

A national water policy to guide the country towards achieving sustainable development, management and use of water resources has been launched in Accra.
The launch of the 66-page policy document, which comes at a time of severe water shortages in many parts of the country including urban Accra, is also aimed at improving the present and future health and livelihoods of the people.
The Ga Mantse, King Tackie Tawiah III, who jointly launched the document with the sector minister, Alhaji Abubakar Sadiqque Boniface, said the objectives as outlined in the document would come to naught if pragmatic measures were not taken to ensure its fullest implementation.
According to him, although the implementation would cost some substantial amount of money, the country stood to make savings in the future.
The policy highlights a number of topics such as Water Resources Potential and Utilisation, Development Issues, Obligations and Agreements, Policy Formulation Process and the Guiding Principles to go with them.
On strategic actions, the policy considers areas such as Water Resources Management with focus on Integrated Water Resources Management, Access to Water, Water for Food Security, Water for Non-Consumption and other Uses, Capacity Building and Public Awareness Creation and Finance, among others.
King Tackie Tawiah said: “It equally behoves all of us as patriotic Ghanaians to ensure that we support the government in our ways to ensure the successful implementation of the policy.”
He said water was about the livelihood of all and none could isolate himself or herself from efforts to ensure that water was preserved not only for this generation but for the future as well.
Alhaji Boniface said it was common knowledge that although the water sector had made substantial progress especially in the area of potable water supply to the rural communities and small towns, the same could not be said for the urban and peri-urban areas and more so in the efficient management of the country’s water resources.
“For the past 10 years or more, government has made and published policy statements in various forms that have influenced policy direction, especially leading to the restructuring of the water sector,” the minister said.
Alhaji Boniface enumerated some of the achievements in the past as the establishment of new institutions such as the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) and the Water Resources Commission (WRC), which, among others, have led to new direction and attention that the government accorded the sector.
He said despite these achievements the sector had remained fragmented, lacking coherence in policy formulation for the sector, resulting in the multiplicity of implementation strategies which invariably created more problems than they were intended to solve.
The minister said the preparation of the policy document had also been largely informed by the development agenda driven by the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy paper II and the NEPAD.
He said another essential thrust of the policy was to improve co-ordination and collaboration in the sector to maximise benefits and reduce transaction cost, adding that “in this respect the government, through its various agencies, will follow a sector-wide approach to implementing policies and programmes in the water sector”.
The Danish Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Flemming Bjork Pedersen, for his part, reiterated the issue of implementation because “action speaks louder than words”.
“Let me congratulate the people who have worked hard to prepare the National Water Policy. Now comes the implementation by the Government of Ghana, government agencies, district assemblies, private sector and civil society groups,” he added.