WASH Programs Coordination in Ghana

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WASH Programs Coordination in Ghana

Coordinating Nutrition and Water and Sanation Programs with Innovative Cross-Sectoral Planning Initiatives

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) released aRequest for Applications(RFA) funding opportunity for its Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) for Health Project in Ghana.

Aimed at augmenting WASH practices and reducing undernutrition among Ghanaian populations, the RFA provides a structured framework for establishing collaborative global health partnerships between the Government of Ghana, USAID, international NGOs, and community health organizations. USAID hopes to bolster cross-sectoral collaboration to mitigate the effects of undernutrition and the plethora ofnegative health outcomesassociated with limited access to WASH.

The RFA represents a crucial step forward in the global fight to end extreme poverty by improving access to vital health education and services, and underscores WASH as a pivotal piece to achieving this objective.

While recent data revealed significant improvements in the water sector, sanitation remains a severely neglected issue in Ghana.

The country must make considerable strides in the coming months to reach its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) goal of54 percent coverageby 2015. USAID's new RFA proactively addresses this issue by emphasizing the nexus of nutrition, WASH, and public health.

USAID is also putting theMulti-Sectoral Nutrition Strategyinto practice by integrating WASH and nutrition efforts through WASH for Health's collaboration with nutrition programs such as theSPRING ProjectandFeed the Futureto improve nutrition in Ghana. By accentuating the importance cross-sectoral integration and leveraging public/private partnerships, USAID can leverage resources more efficiently to address issues like WASH, maternal and child health, and nutrition.

Certain program components, such as the development and distribution of "Essential WASH Actions" and"Essential Nutrition Actions"packages, utilize WASH and nutrition education as a means to curtail correlated illnesses such as diarrheal disease and stunting.

Similarly, USAID's attempt to amalgamate key elements of projects like the Communicate for Health Project and Systems for Health Project with the new WASH for Health project establishes a precedent for responding to multifaceted health challenges concurrently.

Source: WashAdvocates

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