WAG urges Ghana to make WASH crucial in public health issue
WaterAid Ghana (WAG) said strengthening the resilience of future pandemics and health threats would not be possible, especially for vulnerable communities, without addressing WASH as a crucial ingredient in public health.
The organization, therefore, urged the government of Ghana to commit to urgently increasing investment in hand hygiene through a ring-fenced budget allocation with a resource mobilization plan for hand hygiene aligned with the achievement of national hand hygiene plans.
“We call for a strengthened budget monitoring and tracking of hygiene and hand hygiene spending across sectors at national and sub-national levels,” WAG added in a statement on the 2021 Global Handwashing Day.
The 2021 report of the Sustainable Development Goals Joint Monitoring Platform by the World Health Organization and UNICEF said handwashing coverage in Ghana improved by one percentage point to 42 percent in 2020 from the 41 percent recorded in 2015.
The Global Handwashing Day was instituted by the Global Handwashing Partnership in 2008 and commemorated annually on October 15 to advocate for handwashing with soap as an easy, effective, and affordable way to prevent diseases and save lives.
In Ghana, the stakeholders, led by the Community Water and Sanitation Agency, carried out public education activities across the 16 regions of the country to sensitize the public on the benefits and proper ways of handwashing under the global theme: “Our Future is At Hand: Let’s Move Forward Together.” Enditem