Upper East-Based Journalists Taken Through Sanitation Campaign

Journalists in the Upper East Region have received orientation on the Open Defecation Free (ODF) Ghana Campaign expected to be launched soon in the Region.

The campaign is a component of President Akufo-Addo's Total Sanitation Campaign, specifically targeted at a social norms approach, aimed at ending Open Defecation.

It is led by the Government through the Ministry of Local Government, the Ministry of Sanitation and Water, and supported by UNICEF Ghana and partners.

Mr Emmanuel Addai, a Communication Consultant at UNICEF who briefed the media in Bolgatanga, said 19 percent of Ghana's population which was about five million people, still practised open defecation, a situation that placed the country among 34 others in the world which still practised the menace.

Mr Addai noted that many Out Patient Department (OPD) cases in the health facilities were hygiene related conditions.

He said the ODF Ghana Campaign therefore sought to intensify the campaign, sensitise communities and support actions to engage people in collective discussions and decisions to stop open defecation by 2030.

Mr. Addai said the role of the media in stopping open defecation was crucial, hence the orientation for journalists to successfully charge institutions, individuals and groups to play their various roles to eradicate the menace.