Mion District leading war against open defecation in northern Ghana

Did you know that the Northern Region is one of the leading areas in the practice of open defecation in the country? The region serves as a home to thousands of people who defecate in the open.  

According to the 2012 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, led by the United Nation Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), 72 per cent of the 2,479,461 people in the Northern Region defecate outside.

Only five per cent of households in the region have their own toilet facilities.

There are 1,229,887 males and 1,249,574 females in the Northern region.

Open defecation is whereby people go out in the bushes, fields, forests, open bodies of water, or other open spaces rather than using lavatories to defecate.  

Mion’s example

The Mion District is one of the 26 districts in the Northern Region with its capital at Sang. The District has a total population of 48,793 within its 145 communities.

Out of the 4,413 communities in all the 26 Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies in the Northern Region, 191 of them are open defecation free. The Mion District is leading with 70 communities.

On June 27, 2013, UNICEF Ghana congratulated the Mion District Assembly members for signing a pledge to become an open defecation free district in the Northern Region by August 31 in 2013.

With this, the dawn of hope of breaking the vicious cycle of open defecation in northern Ghana is gaining roots in the Mion District.

According to iamawareghana.com, a website of the Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), sanitation performance in the district was pegged at 77.1 per cent in 2014.

Liwalibo, a small farming community with a population of about 500 is one of the 70 communities in the Mion District that has successfully become open defecation free.

The method

With the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach, Liwalibo community first adopted the practice of ‘dig and bury’, where people defecate in a dug hole and cover it afterwards.

The community also adopted a proper hand washing practice with soap after visiting latrines through the use of ‘Tippy Tabs”.

The Tippy Tap Technology, an outdoor hand-washing facility, is a simple hands-free device that allows for hand washing particularly in rural areas with no running water.

Apart from the use of ‘dig and bury’ method, which has its root in the Bible, in Deuteronomy 23 : 12 - 14, many residents of Liwalibo have constructed household latrines.

Latifatu Mohammed, a mother of three who shared her experience with Graphic Online said, since they all constructed their household latrines and also adopted the use of the Tippy Taps, sanitation diseases such as diarrhoea has disappeared in the community.

Alhassan Abubakari, a resident of Liwalibo, however called on other communities in the region to buy into the idea of CLTS.

Efforts

According to the Northern Regional Director of the Environmental Health, Mr Rex Jakpa, a total of 2,397 communities in the region have been sensitised on open defecation.

He explained that capacity building of staff on open defecation has been done for all the environmental health workers in the region to facilitate the triggering and awareness creation on open defecation.

Mr Jakpa said so far, 950 communities in the region have become Open Defecation Free Basic. This means that “all the people in the community have stopped defecation outside but not all of them have household latrines.”

He therefore commended Mion District for its lead role in the fight against open defecation in the northern Ghana particularly in the Northern Region.

He, however, attributed the success story of the district to the commitment shown by all the various stakeholders in the district, including religious, political, and traditional leaders.

Mr Jakpa also revealed to Graphic Online that the Regional Environmental Health and Sanitation unit would from next month introduce a regional league table on open defecation as part of efforts to encourage all the districts in the region to end the practice.

The Deputy Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji A.B.A. Fuseini, at a meeting with all the 26 Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in the region expressed the fear that due to the lukewarm attitudes by most of the MMDAs in the region, it would be difficult for the region to attain open defecation free in 2017 as planned.

According to him, the region needed more proactive measures so as to be able to attain open defecation free status.

Background  

In 2015, Ghana was ranked second after Sudan in Africa for the practice of open defecation, with more than 19 per cent of its population resorting to sanitation practices considered riskiest of all.     

More than five million Ghanaians practice open defecation with over 20 million people not having access to improved household latrine facilities.

A study conducted by the Coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Water and Sanitation in 2015 placed Upper East Region first in the practice of open defecation with about 82 per cent of its population engaging in the practice.

Upper West Region came second with 79 per cent while Northern Region placed third with 73 per cent.  

The Volta Region occupied the fourth position with 31 per cent while Central Region came fifth with 18 per cent.

Western, Greater Accra, Eastern, Brong Ahafo and the Ashanti Regions followed with 13, eight, six, six and three per cents.

Health implications

It was established by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in 2014 that insanitary practices including open defecation greatly contributed to the outbreak of cholera that hit many parts of the country in that year.

By the close of 2014, a total of 28,975 cases of cholera with 243 deaths were recorded in the country. The 2014 cholera outbreak affected 130 out of the 216 political districts in all the 10 regions of the country.

Economic implications

It must be noted that poor sanitation practices such as open defecation cripples national development. This is because when workers are down with diseases, such as cholera and typhoid, it affects national productivity, shorten people’s lifespan, and also increases financial burdens on patients.

Ghana, for instance, spends more than US$79 million annually on issues resulting from the practice of open defecation. This, include the purchase of drugs to treat patients of cholera and typhoid as well as awareness campaigns.  

Solutions/suggestions

It is, therefore, important as a country to have a behaviour and attitudinal change towards the fight against ending the menace of open defecation.

More importantly, building regulations should be enforced by not granting building permits  to house owners who do not include toilet facilities in their buildings.

It is well established that with improved sanitation, diseases such as diarrhoea and its related deaths could be reduced by 36 percent as well as prevent 20 percent diarrhoea-related stunting in children.

Writer’s email: zadokgyesi@gmail.com