The Sector Minister of the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, Hon. Cecilia Abena Dapaah, has inaugurated a nine-member Board to support the Regional Water and Environmental Sanitation Centre Kumasi (RWESCK) of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) deliver its mandate.
The nine-member Board known as the Sector Advisory Board (SAB) will among other things spearhead industry-academia joint research, training, outreach and advocacy and support the Centre to secure annual internship positions for staff and students.
The SAB will also support the Centre to establish research chairs with funding for research and training. Lastly, the SAB is expected to provide industry occupational standards and competencies required, and feedback on students’ tracer studies among others.
Hon. Cecilia Abena Dapaah administered the oath of office to the members of the Board. The members of the SAB are Hon. Cecilia Abena Dapaah, Chairperson, Ing. Worlanyo Siabi, Chief Executive Officer of the Community Water and Sanitation Agency, Dr. Clifford A. Braimah, Managing Director of the Ghana Water Company Limited and Mr. Ramesh Bhusal, Chief of WASH, UNICEF, all members.
The Executive Secretary of the Water Resources Commission, Mr. Ben Ampomah, Ms. Ama Akpene Ofori –Antwi, Executive Secretary of the Environmental Sanitation Providers Association, Dr. Henry Brew, a Business Developer, H2G U.K. and Dr. Ing. Pascal Bieupoude, a Business Developer of BPL Projects, Abidjan, all members. The Board has Prof. Sampson Oduro-Kwarteng as the Secretary and Prof. Samuel Nii Odai as Ex-Officio member.
Stating the purpose of gathering, Director of RWESCK, Professor Sampson Oduro- Kwarteng, noted that the Centre was established under a loan agreement between the Government of Ghana and the World Bank in 2015 with a loan portfolio of US$8,000,000.00 under the African Centre’s of Excellence project. The loan agreement was further renewed in 2019 with US$5,500,000.00 under the ACE for Development Impact project. The vision of the Centre is to be an international recognized hub for advancing research, knowledge, developing innovative technologies, providing high quality training and outreach in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) for sustainable development of West Africa. Its core mandate is to build capacity in water supply, water resources and environmental sanitation. The Centre currently has 211 Masters students, 56 PhD Students and has offered short term courses to over 400 sector professionals.
Professor Oduro Kwarteng further said, that as a strategy to improve research and academic quality of the Centre, there is need to set up an International Scientific Advisory Board as well as a Sector Advisory Board. Hence the event to inaugurate the sector advisory board and for the Board to review the draft implementation document proposed by the Centre and to give inputs to help the Centre deliver on its mandate, he explained.
Hon. Dapaah said the underlying fact is that they are all on the Board to serve the nation Ghana, especially the Water and Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector and it is quite a technical, intellectual academic exercise that has been launched into.
She hoped the meetings will produce a workable document to help the WASH sector. She also accepted to chair the Board and called for the support of all. She said the board has an onerous responsibility as the area seems very old and also new trends and the current events are showing everyone that there is more work to be done and called for team work in their operation.
Hon. Cecilia Abena Dapaah also cited factors such as population growth and rural-urban migration impact on the delivery of supply of water and the sanitation sector. She said their work will not only be limited to meetings but will also include field trips, among others.
Ing. Worlanyo K. Siabi, on behalf of the Board promised to work to help solve the water and sanitation challenges in the country especially the rural communities. He said the Board has been carefully composed and that the Board will work to make KNUST and Ghana benefit from the project.
Giving a background of the Centre, the Founding Director of RWESCK and currently the Vice-Chancellor of the Accra Technical University, Professor Samuel Nii Odai said the development challenges confronting Ghana, and the Sub-Saharan Africa are enormous, and these include inadequate access to safely managed water and environmental sanitation facilities, poor water resources management as well as the increasing threat to climate variability and water-food-energy insecurity.
According to Professor Nii Odai, the RWESCK therefore seeks to address the water resources and environmental sanitation development challenges in Ghana and Sub-Saharan Africa. He said in order for the region to make significant progress towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 6, 12, 13 and 15, the Centre has positioned itself to enhance teaching, learning and research.
The Centre has the Ghana Water Company, Community Water and Sanitation Agency, National Disaster management Organisation, Hydrological Services Department, Water Research Institute and the Environmental Protection Agency, the University of Cape Coast, University of Education and the National Board for Professional and Technical Examinations as national partners aside regional ones.
The Centre has IHE Institute of Water Education, Delft, Netherlands, Indian Institute of Technology Rookee, India and Hohai University, China as international partners.