In Ghana's Upper East region, a civil society organisation, the Belim Wusa Development Agency (BEWDA), is leading an initiative to train community advocates to gather evidence of climate change's toll on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure. The project, funded by Sweden's International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) through WaterAid Ghana, aims to build local capacity to identify climate change effects and lead resilience efforts.
BEWDA is training 100 community climate advocates across five Upper East districts: Nabdam, Bongo, Kassena-Nankana West, Bawku West, and Kassena-Nankana Municipality. The advocates are being taught to identify and document the specific ways climate change is damaging WASH infrastructure in their communities, from cracked boreholes to failing latrines. This will enable them to push local authorities to provide climate-resilient WASH facilities.
The training includes introducing community members to a scorecarding tool that lets residents assess their own WASH challenges from a local perspective, generating evidence that can be replicated across wider community engagements. This approach allows communities to take ownership of identifying and addressing their WASH needs.
According to BEWDA's Project Lead, Sebastian Agumah Mbabugri, the training is designed to enable community members to generate their own evidence of climate change's impact on WASH systems. This evidence will be used to push duty bearers, civil society groups, and development agencies into action.
BEWDA's Head of Programmes, Emmanuel Abariga, urged the newly trained champions to hold duty bearers accountable for building systems and facilities that shield communities from climate impacts. Duty bearers include assembly members, unit committee members, chiefs and elders, District Chief Executives, Regional Ministers, and Members of Parliament.
The scale of the problem was highlighted by residents during the training sessions. Blessing Aloko from the Nayorigo community reported that 90 percent of households in her area lack a household latrine, forcing widespread open defecation. Kate Agana from Zorko-Awaa said many women in her community walk for nearly an hour to fetch water and appealed for support to secure additional water sources.
The project offers a direct channel for residents in these five districts to raise WASH failures with local government. In a region described as among the most climate-vulnerable in Ghana, this initiative could mean the difference between a community's water and sanitation problems being documented and acted upon, or going unrecorded entirely.
Key points
- BEWDA is training 100 community advocates to document climate change's impact on WASH infrastructure.
- The project aims to build a lasting movement of community advocates able to generate evidence and engage authorities for solutions to climate-related WASH challenges.
- The initiative is funded by Sweden's International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) through WaterAid Ghana.
