Ghana must reduce by half the number of people without access to basic sanitation to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) target on sanitation by 2015, Mr Akwasi Oppong-Fosu, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development has said.

Currently, data indicates that only 15 per cent of Ghanaians have access to improved sanitation.

In a speech read for him by Mr Baba Jamal, the Deputy Minister, Mr Oppong-Fosu said the government is committed to achieving the target, which requires the country to halve the population without access to improved sanitation.

Mr Oppong-Fosu said this on Monday at the launch of the scaling up of the Community-Led Sanitation programme to the Eastern and Brong Ahafo regions at Suhum.

He said the Ministry in July 2013, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Results-Based Financing organizations for the provision of sanitation and hygiene at the community level.

The RBF includes six community based organizations and is tasked with the mandate of implementing the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) programme to improve sanitation and hygiene at the districts level.

Mr Oppong-Fosu said the CLTS are involved in mobilizing communities to completely eliminate open defecation and build latrines through a process of facilitation.

He said the Ministry had adopted the CLTS programme as a national strategy and is currently rolled out in selected districts in five regions namely Upper West, Upper East, Northern, Central and Volta Region.

Mr Oppong-Fosu said the launch of Eastern and Brong Ahafo region CLTS programme was timely because sanitation requires urgent and collective action by all in order to make progress in meeting the MDG target.

He noted that sanitation conditions in the country is deteriorating with an increase in sanitation related morbidities and mortalities among children under five who are the most vulnerable.

Mr Oppong-Fosu said government has taken up sanitation as one of its priority areas to tackle since there is the recognition that, improved sanitation is critical for socio-economic development of the country.

He said the Ministry in 2012 launched the National Sanitation Programme to tackle the appalling sanitation programme in the communities through behavioral change.

Mr Naa Lenason Demedeme, Director, Environmental Health and Sanitation at the MLGRD, said the CLTS are involved in mobilizing communities to completely eliminate open defecation and build latrines through a process of facilitation.

He said through the programme, community members realize the links between defecation and negative health, economic and social impacts and as a result, they become motivated to take collective action to change the negative practice.

Mr David Duncan, Chief of Water and Sanitation Hygiene, UNICEF Ghana, said the outfit is committed to funding the project to improve sanitation and hygiene to meet the MDGS target for sanitation.

He said access to sanitation in the country is low, adding that, reports from the Ministry of Health in 2009 stated that about 70 per cent of out-patient attendance.