Almost half a million people in urban areas practising open defecation; 1.3 million people use public toilets – GSS reveals

The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has issued its monthly reports on the living conditions in urban areas in the country as it focuses on International Cities Day.

In the release, GSS said almost half a million people in the country are practicing open defecation.

“Almost half a million (449,849) households in urban areas did not have a toilet facility and were practising open defecation while 1.3 million used public toilet facilities,” part of the release from the Ghana Statistical Service said.

In the breakdown of the data, GSS said over half of the urban households practised open defecation in the North East (54.0%) and Savannah (51.9%) regions, more than five times the national urban average of 8.9 percent.

In all, there were six regions with over 20.0 percent of urban households practising open defecation.

Meanwhile, one in every four households (27.7%) in urban areas does not have their main source of drinking water on their premises according to the 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC) General Report on Water and Sanitation.

This figure represents 1.4 million urban households without access to water on their premises.

Out of this number, 89,922 households had to travel more than 30 minutes to make a round trip to get to their main source of drinking water and return.

World Cities Day is commemorated annually on 31st October to end the observance of Urban October which was instituted to raise awareness of the challenges facing urban areas.

Disaggregated data on households in rural areas can be accessed directly from the GSS StatsBank. The 2021 PHC General Reports on Housing Conditions and Water and Sanitation can be downloaded from www.statsghana.gov.gh.