World Toilet Day: 1.5 million households in Ghana practising open defecation

The 2021 Population and Housing Census General Report on Water and Sanitation indicates that 1,477,747 households do not have access to a toilet facility.

The figure represents 17.7 per cent of the household population with the prevalence of open defaecation in rural areas – 31.3 per cent – and 8.9 per cent in the urban areas.

This is in a statement from the Ghana Statistical Service to mark World Toilet Day.

It said the percentage of households without access to toilet facilities was 19.3 per cent in 2010 and 20.2 per cent in 2000 indicating a reduction of 2.5 percentage points in the prevalence of open defaecation over the 21-year period.

The regions with the highest proportion of households without access to toilet facilities are the Upper East region representing 80.0 per cent and North East region with 79.7 per cent, where eight in every 10 households practices open defaecation.

There are six regions where more than 100,000 households are practising open defecation – Northern (242,034), Upper East (180,797), Ashanti (111,306), Greater Accra (105,717), Volta (102,997) and Bono East (102,442).

The statement said point of defecation for households without access to a toilet facility was predominantly bush/open field/gutter (1,380,720 households) followed by beach/water bodes (61,401 households).

World Toilet Day is commemorated annually on November 19, to raise awareness of the billions of people without access to proper sanitation.

Source: GNA