1. COMMUNITY WATER & SANITATION AGENCY
POLICY REFORMS IN
THE WASH SUB-SECTOR
PRESENTATION TO GHIE
ING. WORLANYO KWADJO SIABI
28TH MARCH 2019

2. PRESENTATION OUTLINE The WASH Sector in Ghana
Policy Reforms in the Rural WASH Sub-sector
Progress on Policy Reforms
Conclusion

4. THE WASH SECTOR IN GHANA

5. THE WASH SECTOR IN GHANA
Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services is provided currently in Ghana under two Ministries
Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources
Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development
Under the MSWR, there are three organizations
Community Water & Sanitation Agency (CWSA)
Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL)
Water Resources Commission (WRC)

6. THE WASH SECTOR IN GHANA
CWSA facilitates the provision of rural water supplies and water related sanitation at the domestic level.
GWCL provides water to urban communities.
Water Resources Commission protects and manages Ghana’s water resources.
Waste management now comes under the Metropolitan, Municipal & District Assemblies (MMDAs) through the MSWR

7. THE WASH SECTOR IN GHANA
Before the early 1990s, Ghana Water and Sewerage Corporation (GWSC) was the sector organization responsible for water supply to all communities in Ghana (urban & rural).
The mandates of GWSC also included sewerage, but not solid waste.
In the early 1990s, as a result of many challenges in the WASH Sector, there were several proposals for REFORMS.

8. THE WASH SECTOR IN GHANA
The WASH sector was reformed and two organizations were formed out of GWSC, namely Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) and Community Water & Sanitation Agency (CWSA).
Later in 1990s, Water Resources Commission was established to manage the water resources.
The sewerage services under GWSC was transferred to the MMDAs.

9. POLICY REFORMS IN THE RURAL WASH SUB-SECTOR

10. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CWSA
CWSA was established by an Act of Parliament of the Republic of Ghana 1998, Act 564.
Its mandate as established by Act 564 is to “Facilitate the provision of safe water to rural communities and small towns and promote water related sanitation and hygiene practice”.
CWSA was also mandated to implement the National Community Water & Sanitation Plan (NCWSP) which was launched in 1994.

11. RURAL WATER SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE
CWSA made significant contributions to the WASH sector which is summarized as follows:
A total of 32,656 boreholes fitted with hand pumps were constructed to serve small communities.
a total of 1022 piped water systems (including connections from GWCL water systems were installed to serve small towns.

12. RURAL WATER SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE
82,309 household improved latrines and 5,221 institutional latrines were also installed.
Hygiene promotion interventions were carried in many communities and public places to improve public health.

13. RURAL WATER SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE
After 24 years of implementing the NCWSP, access to water increased from 24% in 1990 to % in 2017.
CWSA contributed to the countrywide sanitation coverage now estimated at about 20%.

15. NEW WASH PROGRAMMES AT IMPLEMENTATION STAGE

16. NEW WASH PROJECTS AT IMPLEMENTATION STAGE
Sustainable Rural Rater & Sanitation Project- Additional Financing (SRWSP-AF).
Project covers Central, Upper West, Upper East, Brong Ahafo*, Northern* and Western* regions: Project Cost is US$ 45.7 Million.
Spain-Ghana Debt Swap Water Project
Project will benefit 69,000 people in 28 communities in the Volta Region. Project cost is US$3.78 Million.

17. REFORMS IN THE WASH SUB-SECTOR & CWSA

18. CONTEXT AND RATIONALE/1
In spite of the achievements in rural water services delivery, there is growing consensus that the approach needs to be overhauled (Baumann, 2006; Van den Broek and Brown, 2015).
If the communities are left on their own, the water systems often begin to fail once large scale investments for major repair or rehabilitation works are required (Bolt et al., 2001).

19. CONTEXT AND RATIONALE/2
The institutional challenge of setting and enforcing effective O&M policies is even bigger for larger and more complex systems, which puts the scalability of the approach into question (Bolt et al., 2001).

20. CONTEXT AND RATIONALE/3
Moriarty et al., (2013) explicitly agreed with a generally held belief that community management is:
‘at the beginning of the end’…not principally because community management has failed, but because it is reaching the limits of what can be realistically achieved in an approach based on informality and voluntarism’.

21. CONTEXT AND RATIONALE/4
A baseline study in 119 districts in 6 regions established that 39% of boreholes and 25% of piped schemes were non-functional (CWSA, 2014).
A larger proportion were partially functioning.
Only 10% of the functioning water systems delivered basic service (CWSA, 2014).

22. CONTEXT AND RATIONALE/5
Continuous cycle of breakdown and rehabilitation with resources that should have been used to provide water systems to ‘first time’ beneficiaries.
Non revenue water on rural piped water systems have increased steadily, between 45-60%, resulting in higher unit cost of production and water tariff.

23. CONTEXT AND RATIONALE/6
Between 20% to 33% of groundwater supplies in the Eastern, Central, Western, Greater Accra, Volta and Ashanti Regions do not meet the minimum acceptable levels of water quality; the highest occurring in the Ashanti Region. High levels of iron, manganese, fluoride, arsenic, hardness, and salinity are common (CWSA, 2010) .

24. CONTEXT AND RATIONALE/5

25. CONTEXT AND RATIONALE/7
There is low or non-existent technical capacity at the district and community level to manage piped water systems.
Less than 1% of WASH professionals trained at our Universities and technical institutions are employed in WASH management.
There is inadequate accountability for revenue generated

26. CONTEXT AND RATIONALE/9
There is a water management knowledge gap at the district and community levels. Water provision, operation and maintenance is technical and involves application of complex technology and innovation which requires the use of qualified professionals.

27. THE REFORM PATH
CWSA Board approved the policy reforms and tasked the Agency to initiate steps to manage 200 water systems by end of 2019.
The decision of the CWSA Board was communicated to the MSWR.

28. THE REFORM PATH
The 2017 CWSA Annual Review Conference at NODA Hotel in Kumasi agreed on a major shift in policy within the sector in two areas, namely.
Restructure and strengthen CWSA to respond to the challenges of the sub-sector.
Mobilize resources and invest new technology and innovations required to sustain water provision in rural communities.

29. KEY ELEMENTS OF THE REFORM

30. INSTITUTIONAL RE-ALIGNMENT
CWSA
CWSA to engage professional staff to manage small towns piped water systems, and take steps to stabilize hand pumps and improve rural sanitation.
To review Act 564 to support the new role.

31. INSTITUTIONAL RE-ALIGNMENT
PRIVATE SECTOR
Private sector to provide goods and services.
In the new Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement, a private sector entity must have equity or share in the investments to participate in the management of the water supply systems.

32. INSTITUTIONAL RE-ALIGNMENT
DISTRICT ASSEMBLIES
District Assemblies will play a facilitation and coordination role to create an enabling environment for WASH services delivery. This function will include support for general community entry and mobilisation, land acquisition, conflict resolution, system expansion etc.
The role assigned to the district assemblies finds expression in sections 11&12 of the Local Governance Act, 2016, Act 936.

33. INSTITUTIONAL RE-ALIGNMENT
NGOS
NGOs play significant roles in promoting equitable service provision and reducing poverty through infrastructure development, capacity building and advocacy. They will continue to play the following roles.
Participate in policy dialogue on WASH.
Facilitate innovation and sharing of knowledge and best practices.
Support collaboration and co-ordination within the sub-sector.
Advocate and demand for accountability.

34. MANAGEMENT OF POINT WATER SYSTEMS & SANITATION
In the medium to long-term, a mechanism will be instituted to support communities in the management of point water systems and sanitation. The CWSA governing board will approve part of revenue generated to fund this intervention.

35. KEY ACHIEVEMENTS ON THE REFORMS/1
100 piped water systems are being managed countrywide. Rehabilitation is ongoing on these water system to sustain water service delivery.
724 professionals made up of engineers, technician engineers, accountants, water safety specialist, revenue officers, community relations officers have been engaged by CWSA. Additional 287 auxiliary staff have been engaged to support the professional staff.

36. KEY ACHIEVEMENTS ON THE REFORMS/2
Water safety plans have been developed for 100 water systems, therefore Ghana can now provide data to WHO as part of its obligations towards achievements of SDG 6.
Rehabilitation on-going on all water systems under CWSA management to improve water service delivery.
Consultation of stakeholders is continuing to build support for the policy reforms.

37. CONCLUSION
This model will save the huge public investments in WASH infrastructure from deterioration, and will create a common pool of resources for the operation and maintenance of existing water systems and to provide new water infrastructure to communities with no access

38. Always wash your hands with soap!!!!
THANK YOU