UN-Ghana Team Call On Sanitation Minister

The United Nations team in Ghana has paid a courtesy call on the Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Abena Dapaah to ascertain the ministry’s priorities and aspirations for 2020 and beyond.

The said meeting which took place on February 11 at the Ministry had in attendance representatives of the various UN Agencies in Ghana.

The UN Resident Coordinator, ad interim for Ghana, Sylvia Lopez – Ekra indicated that “…2020 is a special year. We have now 10 years left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UN Secretary-General is very clear that we need to accelerate the pace of delivery of our promises to the people. So he has declared 2020 a decade of action to accelerate the SDGs at the global level.”

According to her, the various UN agencies in Ghana which have been doing a lot of things with various government counterparts have started series of meetings with their key partners. "This is to enable them share the work that they do together as well as listen to the Ministers to find out their priorities and aspirations going forward for better coordination."

In her remark, the Minister, Cecilia Abena Dapaah stated, “With water, we are reviewing the National Water Policy which we normally do every 10 years. We also have as a government vision to establish the National Sanitation Authority which will put to rest, all matters of sanitation that will galvanize our efforts and make sure that funding is embedded in the Authority to take care of sanitation matters.”

Another area the Ministry is pursuing is proper data collection which she said, “We all know what data does for us. It helps us with our developmental processes.”

She concluded that “We will pledge our support to whatever you are doing in this country which is very good and also say that we are your partners as long as our jobs are concerned.”