Forty-nine communities have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) in the third quarter of the year while about 73 communities are pending verification and subsequent approval, Mr Henry Bagah, Upper West Regional Environmental Health Officer, said at a Regional Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee on Sanitation  meeting.

He said the achievement were laudable adding that coordination between stakeholders was necessary to achieve the desired results. Mr Bagah said the failure to enforce the existing bye-laws was one of the major challenges hampering the progress in the sanitation sector.

He said municipal and district assemblies are unable to effectively implement sanitation policies in their localities because of lack of commitment and the negative perception of some people towards sanitation issues.

Mr Issifu Saalifu Kanton, Executive Director of Community Development Alliance (CDA), said the District Resource Persons (DRPs) and Natural Leaders concept adopted by the UNICEF, which the CDA was implementing, is to complement the activities of the District Environmental Health Officers (DEHOs) to fight sanitation issues at the district level.

He said the DRPs concept is a two year sanitation intervention approach where six resource persons have been deployed to Lambussie/Karni, Nadowli/Kaleo, Sissala West, Wa West, Wa East and Daffiama/Bussie/Issa Districts, to help implement the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) intervention at the community levels.

Mr Kanton said though all stakeholders have embraced the CLTS intervention and DRPs concept, there was still poor coordination at the district level among some District Environmental Health Officers (DEHOs)”.

He said “poor road networks to some of the communities, delay in release of funds for sanitation issues at the district levels, lack of monitoring as well as lack of understanding of mandate by DEHOs” were  some of the challenges affecting the implementation of sanitation policies at the district levels.

The Community Water and Sanitation Agency, Department Of Community Development, Ghana Health Service, Wa Municipal Assembly, Pronet North, Information Service Department and Plan Ghana as well as Zoom Lion Ghana Limited attended the meeting.