Challenges for health and water resources in the Birim districts of eastern Ghana.

Abstract

In the late 1970s and early '1980s, the Ghana Water and Sewerage Corporation (GWSC) with assistance from the government of Germany (KfW through IGIP) drilled 144 wells in the Birim North and South Districts of the Eastern Region of Ghana. This was part of an overall provision of water to rural communities which later came to be known as the 3000 Wells Project. The wells were supply-driven and were centrally-maintained, without community involvement in planning and operation. Earlier in 1970, an agricultural development project was also promoted in the two otherwise deprived districts with the aim of increasing output of produce and thereby improving incomes of rural farmers with emphasis on cocoa, rice and oilpalm. In 1992, under a United Nations' Development Programme Rural Water and Sanitation Project with the GWSC, another 141 wells were drilled and assistance provided to households to build 750 Ventilated Improved Pit (VIP) latrines coupled with hygiene education under a demand-driven community management approach. (About 60% of the budget was allocated to water, another 30% to sanitation while some 10% was meant for hygiene education interventions). All the wells were fitted with modified Indian Mk II pumps. These measures together were meant to improve the health of rural communities and make them contribute more positively to national development. The paper looks at some of the possible factors of the two water projects and the agricultural development project that could impact negatively on the water resources and health of people in these two districts.