Assessing The Progress Towards Improved Water Accessibility In Urban Accra: A Case Study At Dome

ABSTRACT Several reports around the globe point to the fact that access to water has improved in many parts of the world. However, there are still many people who are not able to access improved water. Many people mostly children around the world die from illnesses associated with inadequate and poor water supply. Ghana has the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) and a National Water Policy in place to provide potable water. However, the people in Dome in Accra still have challenges with access to improved water. The study used data from the fifth and sixth rounds of the Ghana Living Standards Survey to assess the extent of improvement in improved water accessibility and the factors that influence access to improved water, and a qualitative study at Dome assessing the current situation in accessing improved water. Age, gender, education and welfare index were found to be significant and positive. Even though there has been some improvement in potable water availability in Dome, access to improved drinking water reduced by one percent over the period between the two rounds of survey. The decline resulted from increase in the population culminating in high demand of water supply services and challenges with logistics, power supply, illegal connections, debt owed GWCL by default customers and pressure on the machines due to population growth. The qualitative study revealed that even though unimproved and relatively expensive, those who provide water though the tanker services were more reliable than the GWCL. The major problem of the residents is that although they pay heavily for pipe borne water (GWCL) services they do not receive the required quality of services. The GWCL should use each decade’s population and housing census to help in planning in order to anticipate and meet the demands of the growing population. The GWCL needs to enforce its laws including prosecution on unauthorized tapping of water from its transmission pipes and non-payment of bills to generate the needed resources to acquire and maintain its machine.