Accra, Jan. 21, GNA - Transparency and Integrity in Service Delivery in Africa (TISDA) has initiated a three-year project on water, sanitation and health to complement and supplement poverty reduction efforts carried out by other organizations on the continent. The project would also assess the impact of corruption in water service delivery through resource flow risks maps. Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), an NGO, and its partners are the local implementing partners in Ghana.

At a preliminary stakeholders' meeting on water in Accra on Wednesday, Ms Evelyn Nuvor, Project Coordinator, TISDA, said the projects were aimed at empowering sub-Saharan African Civil Society, particularly GII and partners advocating on the basis of "resource flow risks maps", to improve integrity, transparency and accountability in water service delivery.

She said the overall objective of the project would be greater integrity, transparency and accountability, leading to improved water service delivery through advocacy base on a risk map research exercise. Ms Nuvor said communities in sub-Saharan African countries enjoyed better quality of life through expanded and effective access to basic services.

She attributed this to good governance which brought about by a strong and sustainable network of professionally capable civil society organisations pushing for reform. Ms Nuvor said at the end of the project public authorities at various levels took up reforms that improved transparency, integrity and accountability of governance to civil society end users in the delivery of basic services.

"Civil society, beyond Transparency Initiative chapters and partners, including the national, regional inter-governmental organizations and international donors, have substantially increased understanding of issues of transparency, integrity and accountability in basic service delivery and include this perspective in their activities."

Mr Vitus Azeem, Executive Secretary, GII, said poverty alleviation efforts in Africa were undermined by poor governance. He said poor governance such as lack of transparency, integrity and accountability contributed to non-delivery, reduced access and inefficiencies of basic services.

He said the African Union estimated that corruption cost African economies in excess of 148 billion dollars a year, adding that civil society organizations could mobilize the public to demand accountability.

Mr Azeem said the committee would assess the current state of water distribution in both urban and rural settings throughout the country to find out if they were connected to water or not. "If they are not, the committee will find out why and if yes the committee will find out whether the water is of good quality," he added. 21 Jan. 09