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Ensuring water availability to the
populace is a strategic priority- Owusu-Agyeman
Ho, Mar. 22, GNA-Government is moving towards making water
available to 85 percent of Ghana's population by 2015, as a
strategic priority.
This is because access to water was crucial to "the
successful achievement of most of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs)" and the Growth and Poverty Reduction (GPRS)
11.
Mr Hackman Owusu-Agyeman, Minister for Water Resources,
Works and Housing made these points in his keynote address
to mark "World Water Day" in Ho on Thursday under the theme,
"Coping with water scarcity".
"Fortunately we have set our priorities towards ensuring the
provision of good drinking water and sanitation related
services for our increasing population in the rural and
urban areas", he said.
Mr Owusu-Agyeman said the task would require that the
citizenry seriously explore simple but important
technologically sound alternative sources of water supply
such as rainwater harvesting.
He therefore, tasked the District Assemblies to introduce
mechanisms, including building codes and byelaws and their
enforcement to promote rainwater harvesting.
Mr Owusu-Agyeman said attention should also be focused on
water management that addresses water conservation and
pollution and creation of buffers along water bodies.
He said preliminary studies have therefore been initiated
which aim at developing an appropriate buffer zone policy
for the protection of the country's water bodies and vital
eco-systems while providing economic benefits for the
populace.
Mr Owusu-Agyeman said in response to the sub-regional
dimension of water resource management, the country played a
lead role towards establishing the Volta Basin Authority,
involving other countries such as Burkina Faso, Benin, Cote
d'Ivoire, Togo and Mali.
In a statement the Chairman of the Water Resources
Commission (WRC), Professor Clement Dorm-Adzobu said the
Commission has initiated substantial programmes to develop
appropriate management instruments, accelerating
institutional co-ordination and creating enabling
environment towards the effective implementation of
Integrated Water Resource Management, which resulted in the
establishment of decentralized basin management boards.
One of such boards was the Densu Basin Board comprising
representatives of District Assemblies, local authorities,
non-governmental organizations, women and government
institutions leading to the improvement in water quality of
the Densu.
A statement from the United Nations Secretary General Mr Ban
Ki -moon said the way forward in coping with water scarcity
require strengthening institutional capacity and governance
at all levels, promoting more technology transfer,
mobilizing more financial resources and scaling up good
practices and lessons learnt.
He called on the "UN system and all stakeholders to forge
stronger partnerships and take more concerted action
throughout the entire International Decade for Action: Water
for Life 2005-2015".
GNA
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