Water Availability and Communities’ Access for Development: A Case Study of the Ga East Municipal Assembly in the Greater Accra Region

Abstract

The focus of most interventions in the water sector has been on the provision of water to communities and households. This notwithstanding, quite a number of studies has looked beyond water provision to issues surrounding access, functionality and affordability. This study focuses on these and further considers water availability all-year round and the effects competing economic use of water has on its availability for households all-year round in the Ga East Municipal Assembly. The data used for the analysis was gathered from 120 households, five key informants and three focused group discussions. The results indicate that access to water all-year largely depends on the community a household resides in and the source of water used. Though women dominate the water search process, access has nothing to do with a person‟s level of education and sex. Interestingly, the results further show that using water for income generation activities has very little effect on water availability for household use. The study recommends that more attention should be focused on the provision of water schemes for communities without reliable access to water, since it has proven useful in addressing household water needs in some parts of Ga East. The assembly should also initiate a process in conjunction with the Municipal Education Office to curtail the increasing involvement of girls of school-going age in searching for water, since it has the tendency of affecting their performance and retention in schools.