At the Third Ghana Water Forum held in Accra, 5 - 7 September 2011, WASHCost presented research findings, new briefing notes, and the country coordinator discusses the way forward. Mr. Eugene Appiah-Effah, a WASHCost Ghana Research Officer presented on the topic ‘Cost of rural and small town water service delivery in the Bosomtwe District’.
Published on: 23/09/2011
At the Third Ghana Water Forum held in Accra, 5 - 7 September 2011, WASHCost presented research findings, new briefing notes, and the way forward. Together with Resource Centre Network (RCN), WASHCost mounted a joint exhibition stand. On display for the first time were the newly produced WASHCost Ghana Briefing Notes series 1-4, the IRC Ghana Programme 2011 brochure, and some RCN and IRC publications.
In a video interview with Nick Dickinson, Alexander Obuobisa-Darko, WASHCost country coordinator talked about the future of WASHCost: “We have made the sector get to know the essence of costs in budgeting, and the essence of disaggregated costs. There had been much interest on investment costs but there is more to invest into to bring about the sustainability of systems, like capital maintenance costs and support costs which are otherwise neglected... [WASHCost] has to interact with the sector and we have to come out with our briefing notes: we share the results.”
Visitors to the stand could pick the various series of the briefing notes and other publications, which were available in large quantities or could be downloaded for free. Most visitors were very interested and picked the WASHCost briefing notes and the IRC Ghana brochures, in part, because of their colourful designs. Contact details of visitors to the stand were also collected to build database so that they could be sent future publications. The WASHCost/RCN stand was honoured with the visit of the Minister of Water Resources Works and Housing (MWRWH), Hon. Alban Sumana Bagbin (MP) on the final day of the event. He enquired about some the activities of WASHCost and was delighted about the WASHCost publications.
At the event itself, there were presentations from Bismark Dwumfour-Asare, Eugene Effah, and Dr Kwabena Nyarko. Dr Patrick Moriarty, country director for IRC Ghana and WASHCost governance specialist, was a panel member and chairman for some of the sessions. Mr. Eugene Appiah-Effah, a WASHCost Ghana Research Officer presented on the topic ‘Cost of rural and small town water service delivery in the Bosomtwe District’. This district is one of many where WASHCost undertook an action research to find the life-cycle costs of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in the area. Please see the presentation below:
In all, it could be said that the Third Ghana Water forum was a success not only for Ghana but for the WASHCost Ghana Project team as we were able to disseminate research findings through publications and leave a positive impression in the minds of participants that IRC Ghana and its various projects, like WASHCost, are here to contribute to the development of the water sector in the long term.
