By Fatima Anafu-Astanga, GNA
Tamale, April 27, GNA - Ms Margeret Gwada, the Chief of Field Office, UNICEF Ghana, has said the pledge to end open defecation in the Upper East, Upper West and the Northern regions by December 2019 required strong and collaborative partnership.
She said even though communities were waking up to the call, the need for strong partnership to ensure the country attained the sanitation agenda was crucial.
Ms Gwada made the call in a solidarity message at a media summit in Tamale on; “Sustaining Interest of Media in the Open Defecation Free Ghana Agenda,” organised by Kings Hall Media Limited and sponsored by World Vision International.
She said sanitation issues were top agendas for UNICEF and a priority agenda to Ghana and, therefore, a strong collaboration in sustaining the momentum was needed to achieve it.
To this end, Ms Gwada reiterated that the media would continue to be a primary stakeholder in channelling sanitation agenda and sustaining the momentum as well as engaging communities to attain open defecation free in Ghana.
She said in 2017, the Government, together with UNICEF and other international partners, launched the National Sanitation Social Norms Campaign as an integral part of the Clean Ghana Campaign and as a national flagship programme in about five regions.
Ms Gwada indicated that the campaign, among other things, aimed at contributing to an open defecation free Ghana with objectives to creating awareness that the practice was dangerous.
There was also the need to change individual behaviour at the household levels and create social change leading to open defecation free in communities and districts.
She said the critical role of the media in the campaign went unchallenged and, therefore, the need to position them strategically to keep the campaign alive.
Ms Gwada urged the media to go further to report successes in communities and celebrate their Open defecation free status.
GNA
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