The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has engaged the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) in discussions aimed at strengthening Ghana’s sanitation strategies and aligning them with national development priorities.
The meeting, held on Monday, August 25, 2025, focused on accelerating progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 6.2. This is significant because SDG 6.2 is one of the five priority targets identified in Ghana’s Technical Report on SDGs Transformation and Commitments towards accelerating SDG implementation over the next five years.
Dr. Audrey Smock Amoah, Director-General of NDPC, emphasized the importance of building synergies across Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), particularly those with decentralized functions.
She noted that the Inter-Ministerial Coordinating Committee (IMCC) could serve as an important platform to resolve overlapping roles and ensure accountability. She welcomed the call for a long-term plan to address persistent sanitation challenges and highlighted the need for a unified long-term vision for Ghana’s development.
According to her, broad consultations and legislative backing are essential if future plans are to be safeguarded against political shifts. She further explained that sanitation management has faced structural challenges due to fragmented institutional responsibilities, and called for stronger collaboration between the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs and the Office of the Head of Local Government Service (OHLGS).
Mrs. Loretta Roberts, WASH Specialist with UNICEF, underscored the urgency of eliminating open defecation across the country while simultaneously promoting safe human waste management to prevent the creation of new public health problems.
She stressed that sanitation must be treated as a multi-sectoral issue, with linkages to health, education, interior, and defence. She also noted that the Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate of the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs is currently engaging all 23 ministries and their agencies to ensure coordinated planning, while positioning sanitation as one of the priority programmes that can galvanize national support.
The UNICEF team further linked this effort to Ghana’s long-term vision, emphasising that NDPC’s role was crucial to ensuring continuity regardless of future political changes.
Dr. Felix Addo-Yobo, Social Policy Specialist with UNICEF, underscored the Commission’s recognition of SDG 6.2 as a critical entry point for accelerating progress across all the SDGs. He argued that deliberate actions are now required to translate analysis into implementation, stressing the need for stronger collaboration with MDAs to avoid working in isolation.

He indicated that UNICEF remains committed to supporting Ghana’s sanitation agenda, provided there is strong national ownership and clear leadership from NDPC.
Ms. Patience Ampomah, Senior Planning Analyst at NDPC, raised the issue of duplication, noting that sanitation-related strategies already exist at the sectoral level, including environmental sanitation policies and investment plans. She explained that the Commission was concerned with how new strategies would fit into existing frameworks and stressed the importance of ensuring that any national sanitation plan aligns with both medium- and long-term planning horizons.
She added that robust analysis, strong indicators, and realistic targets would be critical in positioning sanitation strategies as part of Ghana’s broader development agenda.