Over the course of seven intensive days of hands-on training, the trainees learned about biodigester technology, types, principles of operation, and construction of biodigester toilet systems.

They also received instruction in effluent management, operations and maintenance, as well as health, safety, and environmental considerations.

Additional topics included marketing, customer relations, user education for toilet users, and entrepreneurship.

“Since assuming the role of principal of this school, I observed that the Dangbe East and West Municipalities are areas in the Greater Accra Region where open defecation is prevalent,” said Professor Prince Boateng, Principal of Ada College of Education.

He noted this program will help solve that problem and also provide job opportunities for the trainees, thereby calling on people to take advantage of the upcoming sections.

Speaking on behalf of the trainees, Kpodo David Kwami, the course representative of the group, said the training has empowered them to become ambassadors for sustainable waste management in their communities.

"We have learned how to design and install bio-digesters that can transform organic waste into valuable fertilizer, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting eco-friendly practices," he added.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines, Mr. Quaranchie Adama-Tettey, Behavior Change and Communication Specialist of GAMA advised that Ghanaians must wake up to the reality that no matter what government does, waste management efforts will not work unless the citizenry owns and supports it. 

This comes after a biodigester construction and installation center was commissioned in the college in March by the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources as part of the capacity-building initiatives of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area Sanitation and Water Project, funded by the World Bank.

The bio-digester toilet technology is fast becoming the preferred toilet option for many urban households in Ghana.

The 2021 population and housing census ranked the bio-digester toilet technology as the fourth most used toilet technology in Ghana with about 130,251 households using the technology across the country as at the time of the census.

The Ministry through the GAMA SWP has promoted the technology and provided over 520,000 people with access to bio-digester household toilets in Accra and Kumasi since 2015 to date.

Source: Modern Ghana

The training, tailored for Environmental Health Officers and Waste Management personnel in the Greater Accra Region, was facilitated by Madam Charlotte Adjei Marfo, the Capacity Building Coordinator of the GAMA Sanitation and Water Project.

In a bid to address pressing environmental challenges and promote a more sustainable approach to resource management, with a growing recognition of the importance of circular economy principles in managing waste and conserving resources, the initiative aims to equip participants with the knowledge and tools necessary to implement effective strategies within their respective Municipalities.

Madam Charlotte Adjei Marfo set the stage for the training by emphasizing the crucial role of environmental professionals in driving positive change. She underscored the need to shift from the traditional linear model of waste management to a circular economy framework by closing the loop by ensuring sustainable use of available resources, adopt sustainable practices for waste management in the municipalities to promote environmental sustainability, enhance resilience against climate change impacts, reduce disease burden, and improve the quality of life of the citizens.

“The GAMA Sanitation and Water Project is committed to fostering a culture of sustainability and innovation,” stated Madam Charlotte Adjei Marfo. “Through initiatives like this training program, we aim to empower stakeholders with the insights and skills needed to embrace circular economy principles and champion environmental sustainability.” 

Throughout the two-day training, experts from the University of Environment and Sustainable Development, Accra Technical University, Accra School of Hygiene, and practitioners from the sector like City Waste, and Zoomlion led the participants to undertake practical demonstration of how circular economy and environmental sustainability principles works in their Assemblies, evaluate and adopt tools and strategies to implement circularity. The environmental health officers were encouraged to promote knowledge-sharing among waste management professionals to drive collective action in the area of circular economy and environmental sustainability. 

Source: GAMA

Prof. Gordon said the approach needed to address issues of relevance and applicability to national development needs, with emphasis placed on knowledge creation and better understanding of processes and interaction as well as cost-effective innovation.

“World class education and research has to be seen as part of the same development agenda, just as all the over-arching issues such as gender, sustainability and inter-generational equity,” he said and urged the media to join in the struggle.

He blamed the media for not devoting more columns on sanitation issues as compared to sports stories.

Prof. Gordon said the media gave more than 50 per cent coverage of its regional coverage concentrating on Accra, which, he said, was unfair representation of the issues on the ground.

Professor Samuel Afrane, Provost of the College of Arts and Social Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, contributing on slums and peri-urban development in Ghana, said slums and peri-urban development cut across the urban landscape.

He said large proportions of population in West Africa lived in slums and in Ghana, according to 2001 statistics 4.1 million Ghanaians lived in slums. The number increased to 5.5 per cent in 2008.

Prof. Afrane said 51 per cent of Ghana’s population lived s in the cities and if the trend continued it would rise to 58.5 per cent in 2020.

He identified lack of urban and regional planning systems to curtail movement of people; use of obsolete planning technology and inadequate human resources; unresolved legislative conflicts and inconsistencies, and poor coordination among urban development actors as factors increasing the number of slums.

“We cannot deal with slums in a hit-and-run approach, it must be dealt with holistically,” he said.

Mr Farouk Braimah, Executive Director of Peoples’ Dialogue on Human Settlements, an NGO, advocated for adoption of lower cost technologies to provide good quality and affordable housing for the increasing population.

He, therefore, called for concerted efforts to develop all inclusive cities where everybody’s needs would be well catered for.

Source: GNA

With the country’s current population being over 33 million, it means that 24.7 million people do not have access to improved sanitation facilities while over 5.8 million defecate in the open.

Against that backdrop, they stressed that for the country to stand a chance of achieving SDG 6, more commitment must be made in the establishment of WASH infrastructure.

This was stated in separate interviews with the Daily Graphic during the inauguration of a training centre for the construction of bio-digester toilets at Ada College of Education (ADACOE) in the Greater Accra Region last Monday.

Bio-digester training centre

A Deputy Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Amidu Chinnia Issahaku, cut the tape to open the facility at a ceremony that was attended by chiefs from the Ada Traditional Council, the staff and students of ADACOE and representatives of the six beneficiary district assemblies – Ada East, Ada West, Central Tongu, North Tongu, South Tongu and Ningo Prampram. 

The centre was built by the World Bank-funded GAMA-SWP in collaboration with the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources and ADACOE to be used for the training of artisans who will be equipped with expertise and certified to construct bio-digesters across the country. 

For a start, 160 staff and students of the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) department of ADACOE will be trained to serve as trainers of the artisans.

Good initiative

Mr Issahaku said the construction of the facility was significant because the biggest challenge in the sanitation sector was the lack of infrastructure, particularly for the management of both liquid and solid waste.

He gave the assurance that the sanitation ministry would give the centre the needed support to run effectively to help eradicate the phenomenon of quacks who were taking advantage of the acceptance of bio-digester technology to construct substandard facilities.

For his part, Mr Asiedu said the bio-digester centre at ADACOE was the first of many training facilities that would be established at strategic locations across the country. “We have a gap of over 4 million toilets to build for Ghana to achieve SDG 6 in the next six years. 

Most of the toilets will be bio-digesters because so far, 98 per cent of the toilets built under GAMA-SWP are bio-digesters.

We cannot compromise on quality and that is why this centre is very important,” he said. He added that as part of strategies to promote the bio-digester technology, 500 artisans were trained in Kumasi and more would be trained at the newly inaugurated facility.

Coverage

Ms Nanbigne said although the country had achieved 87 per cent water coverage, more work remained to enhance the chances of achieving SDG 6.

The Principal of ADACIE, Professor Prince Boateng, said the construction of the centre was a step in the right direction, given that the college was one of the eight institutions specialising inTVET.

Source: DAILY GRAPHIC

Philip Otchere (not his real name) lives at Kojo Sardine, a suburb of Accra and wakes up 5a.m every morning to be able to make it to the nearby public toilet in his hood. He does this in order to avoid being in any queue. His house, which has no toilet facility, is about 300 metres away from the toilet facility.

Philip is a national service personnel who has just relocated from Kumasi to the national capital to undertake his one-year mandatory national service after graduating from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). In Kumasi, he had a personal toilet facility in his single-room self-contained accommodation.

Now in Accra as a fresh graduate from the university, he has not got a two-year advance to pay for a self-contained single-room accommodation near the institution where he is undertaking his national service.

A single-room self-contained, that is, a small room of about 12 feet by 13 feet with toilet facility at Spintex, a suburb of Accra, where he is doing his national service, is going for GH¢350 a month and the property owner wants two years advance. Obviously, Philip cannot afford to raise GH¢8,400 for the two-year advance. He therefore had to contend with a low-cost room which has no toilet facility in it at Kojo Sardine—GH¢200 a month for one year. At Kojo sardine, the landlords is willing to take only one-year advance.

“The cost of the rent here is good but there is no toilet facility there and so I had to use the public toilet. If you get there early, at least, you will find the place a bit clean. However, if you wait and go after 6a.m, the place will be messed up,” Philip noted, adding “I also don’t want to be in queue.”

Like Philip, many residents of slum-like areas in Accra and other major cities in Ghana do not have access to personal toilet facilities in their rooms and had to use public toilets or shared ones, which are usually unhygienic and unsafe to ease themselves.

Many rented accommodations in Accra do not have toilet facilities in them. This makes it very difficult for residents in these accommodations to find convenient ways to ease themselves when needed. And sadly, many public toilet facilities where those without toilets use also face serious maintenance problems.

Ideally, public toilets are usually meant for visitors to the city and not for residents. However, the reverse is the case in most parts of Ghana’s urban cities. Public toilets have become permanent features for most residents in Accra. 

Source: DAILY GRAPHIC

The Ministry through the GAMA SWP has promoted the technology and provided over 520,000 people with access to bio-digester household toilets in Accra and Kumasi since 2015 to date.

To sustain interest, guard against the proliferation of sub-standard variants of the technology and guide the proper construction of the bio-digester toilet, the Ministry acting through the GAMA SWP has partnered with Ada College of Education to establish the first bio-digester training centre to provide an exhaustive training curriculum on the bio-digester toilet technology.

Delivering a keynote address at the commissioning ceremony of the centre on Monday, March 11, Deputy Minister for Sanitation, Mr. Amidu Chinnia Issahaku said the establishment of the training centre is a testament to government’s commitment to empowering citizens to be at the forefront of sustainable development.

He encouraged the artisans and the youth to take advantage of the centre to learn the construction and installation of game-changing biodigester toilets.

“The government, through the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources is fully committed to supporting initiatives that aim to tackle our sanitation challenges head-on.

“We are dedicated to fostering innovation, providing necessary resources, and creating a conducive environment for such transformation projects to thrive. I encourage each of you to take full advantage of this opportunity, to innovate and to be change-makers our country needs,” Mr. Amidu Chinnia Issahaku said.

Mr. Amidu Chinnia Issahaku

He further indicated that for the Sanitation Ministry and government, the ambition is not just about improving the number of household toilets but also transforming lives, ecosystems, and the future of every citizen.

He said to achieve this, clean water and proper sanitation should not only be seen as basic human rights but the foundation upon which the country will build a sustainable and prosperous nation.

In his address, the Principal of Ada College of Education, Prof. Prince Boateng lamented over open defecation, explaining that it leads to contamination of the environment and water bodies, exposing the public to a whole array of infections and diseases.

He said there is an urgent need for a comprehensive approach that includes investment in sanitation infrastructure, community education and awareness programmes, enforcement of sanitation regulations and collaboration between government agencies, NGOs, and local communities to tackle the menace.

Prof. Prince Boateng

Prof. Prince Boateng in his address stressed that the biodiversity construction and installation centre in Ada College of Education is long overdue and would be of great relief to the various districts and municipal assemblies within the enclaves because managing organic waste by these local authorities would be an issue of the past.

He indicated that not only would it benefit the local authority but the community as well.

“I will appeal to the Minister and his team of experts to consider assisting the biodigester construction and installation centre by lobbying the World Bank to assist the centre with financial support to rebate future trainers to encourage more people to develop interest in taking part in the training.

“I would earnestly appeal to the Minister of Sanitation and Water Resource through the Deputy to assist the college community to solve once and for all a perennial problem of drainage which the college has been grappling with over the years,” Prof. Prince Boateng said.

Speaking at the commissioning ceremony, GAMA SWP Coordinator, Ing. George Asiedu said although sanitation has improved in the country in the last seven years, there is more to be done.

He disclosed that while open defecation remains a problem in the country, there is a need to build not less than 4 million toilet facilities for families.

Ing. George Asiedu

He said this is why the opening of the first-ever Centre to train Artisan in the Construction and Installation of Bio-Digester Household Toilet at the Ada College of Education is crucial.

“We need the skills and skill Labour to do it and do it right. So what we are seeking to do with this facility is to have the manpower to build these toilets. This Centre is going to train the youth and artisans to provide these services. We need to eliminate open defecation and to do that we need to deal with the challenges of toilet facilities,” Ing. George Asiedu indicated.

The commissioning ceremony on Monday was attended by traditional leaders, District Chief Executives from Ada and its neighbouring districts, sanitation and water experts, as well as a representative from the Coalition of NGOs in water and sanitation (CONIWAS).

SOURCE: MORDREN GHANA