The Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources marked the commencement of the implementation of the Accra Solid Waste Management Strategy developed under the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development (GARID) Project with a behaviour change campaign and cleanup exercise in Alogboshie, one of the three beneficiary low-income communities under the Project.
The learning-by-doing event which was carried out in the early hours of Saturday focused on communication for awareness, public sensitization for social change, and actions for environmental cleanliness.
The event climaxed with a cleanup exercise in the Alogboshie, a community located in the Okaikwei North Municipality where over five hundred residents cleared heaps of garbage located within the community, and desilted choked gutters in the area.
Addressing participants, the Municipal Chief Executive of the Okaikwei North Assembly, Hon. Boye Laryea cautioned residents against indiscriminate dumping of refuse into drains stressing that such bad attitudes contribute to the flooding being experienced in Accra.
“I would like to appeal to you to dispose of your wastes properly and desist from indiscriminate disposal of refuse that finds their ways into the drains in the city. Those of you who dump your refuse near the Odaw River that runs through this community are contributing to the perennial flood we experience in Alogboshie and other parts of Accra.”
The Hon. MCE expressed disappointment about the unsanitary condition in some communities within the Municipality and urged residents to support the President’s agenda of making Accra the cleanest city in Africa.
The Deputy Director of the Solid Waste Unit at the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, Sampson Akwettey, said under Component Two of the Project, the Sanitation Ministry is implementing community-based Solid Waste Management (SWM) interventions in targeted low-income communities and carrying out major outreach program to sensitize and improve public behaviour on solid Waste management and litter management.
Mr. Sampson Akwettey announced that the GARID Project will embark on a series of cleanup exercises in other flood-prone low-income communities as part of the ongoing behaviour change communication campaign the Project is carrying out in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area.
The Solid Waste Management Specialist for the GARID Project, Henrietta Osei-Tutu, urged residents of Accra to make use of the services of both formal and informal waste service providers in their disposal of waste to reduce the rate of littering of the environment.
She disclosed that as part of the implementation of the Solid Waste Management Strategy, the GARID Project has begun engagements with the informal waste sector actors on possible areas of collaboration to help improve the services they provide to residents in the Project communities. She said besides organizing capacity workshops for the informal waste sector workers, the Project will support waste workers with equipment that can help improve their works.
The GARID Project aims at addressing flooding in Odaw Basin of the Greater Accra Region and focuses on improving drainage, solid waste management and provision of services and infrastructure in priority flood-prone informal settlements within the basin.
