<<Print>>On July 22, 2015, the Daily Graphic carried an article declaring Ghana the 7th dirtiest country in the world.
The Daily Graphic article was based on the 2015 annual report on progress against the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for access to improved sanitation, written jointly by the World Health Organisation and UNICEF. The United Nations Secretary-General recently described this as the worst performing of the MDGs, meaning that Ghana is amongst the worst of the worst.
Yet, we are a middle-income country with growing national and household wealth, so how has it come to this?
The MDG for access to improved sanitation considers whether people have access to a household toilet or not.
Amongst the many reasons, a household toilet is important because it significantly reduces transmission of diseases such as cholera.
In Ghana, the 25-year MDG target is for 54 per cent of people to have this access, or just over one in every two people.
The MDGs end in five months, and currently, is only 15 per cent of Ghanaians have access to a household toilet.
Five in every six Ghanaians must queue for public toilets, hoping that the person before them does not have one of the numerous diseases, or wander in the bushes or on the streets looking for a suitable spot.
Is it a matter of money? Ghana is a middle lack of income country, but slightly wealthier countries such as Sri Lanka, the Ukraine and Egypt have coverage rates over 90 per cent.
Other West African lower middle income countries such as Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Mauritania and Senegal all have much higher coverage (from 22 per cent to 52 per cent), and Senegal has less income per person than Ghana, but over three times the access to improved sanitation! So it’s not about the money.
The inclusion of Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria in this list suggests not. Our soils and climate are similar and there is open exchanges of technologies and business among these countries.
Is it one of commitment? The progress of our less wealthy neighbours suggests that it is. But what about the National Sanitation Day campaign? Won’t this address it?
The National Sanitation Day campaign has raised awareness of the importance of sanitation, but the activities have focused on drains and litter, rather than toilets. So whilst the campaign has been positive, it’s unlikely to significantly change Ghana’s progress on the MDG or move us out of the bottom 10 countries.
So how do we change things? First, we must want to change. The current situation as described above is often seen as ‘normal’ in Ghana.
To raise our global standing, we need to change what is considered normal. Wanting, having and using a household toilet must become normal for everyone.
Only then will we be able to stand alongside our West African neighbours when we talk of sanitation.
Such a large change is never easy. It requires personal commitment at the household level, - desire to change myself, my family and my community.
It requires structured support at the community and government levels to support those less able to afford basic facilities.
It requires government programmes to help raise awareness and understanding to irreversibly change what is normal.
These change programmes have started with funding from donor partners such as Canada and the Netherlands, but they require additional government funding too.
Not the vast funding required to build toilets, but smart, targeted funding to create the demand for toilets amongst all Ghanaians, to change what is considered ‘normal’, to support the poorest and most vulnerable, and to facilitate and fairly regulate the private sector and landlords.
These changes will not be easy but they are achievable.
To make it happen though, for words such as “proud” and “clean” to be used about Ghana, rather than “dirtiest” and “cholera”, all of us must want to change, from you and I to our political leaders.
The writer is the Chief of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programme of UNICEF.