Reversing Poor Water And Sanitation Coverage In Urban Communities: The WSUP Ghana Approach

Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) is a not-for-profit company that helps transform cities to benefit the millions who lack access to water and sanitation.

We were created in 2005 as a response to the unprecedented urban explosion that has left cities unable to provide basic services, such as access to a toilet or drinking water, to low-income communities.

We work in seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, supported by an office in the UK. Since inception, we have helped over 25 million people access improved water, sanitation, and hygiene services.

WSUP started operations in Ghana in 2010 and was officially registered in 2013. Within this period until now, WSUP has worked across the entire Urban WASH chain in terms of policy regulation, institutional research, and programmatic levels.

Policy Regulation and Institutional Research

One of the significant contributions of WSUP has been working and supporting GWCL to set up a low-income consumer support unit; a unit tailored towards serving poor consumers within GWCL coverage areas. This highlights the focus of WSUP on the urban poor that GWCL as a utility through the instrumentality of LICSU (Low-Income Consumer Support Unit) is now able to serve these low-income communities.

WSUP has also contributed to the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources’ quest to set up a National Sanitation Authority through the initial research to look at best practices and defining the functions of the NSA.

At the Municipal levels, WSUP has actively worked with KMA and the Ga West Municipal Assembly. The organization has worked with both municipalities in improving their sanitation bylaws in which activities within the bylaws ensure more focus on household toilets. WSUP has also conducted a number of research works on market base approaches to sanitation service delivery. On direct service interventions, WSUP has worked with GWCL and supported in extending GWCL pipelines to some low communities in the Ashanti Region, particularly Kumasi, Obuasi, and in a low-income community of Fiapre near Sunyani. The extension of the pipelines also comes with some storage units and public standpipes as well as household connections.

WSUP has also collaborated with Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) in the Ashanti Region to improve water access to some 10 small communities in the Ashanti Region. There is one area of urbanization that the WSUP is paying attention to, i.e. rural communities that are evolving into small towns and peri-urban communities. The WASH systems in these communities are no longer able to meet the demand of these evolving communities. So, this intervention looked at how WSUP works in communities that hitherto were using hand pumps systems but are now grappling with water access. Because these systems were put in when these communities were rural, they have now evolved into small towns and peri-urban communities. So, in doing this project WSUP significantly improved upon water quality for these systems. Continue Here