The Navrongo Campus of the University for Development Studies (UDS) in collaboration with the Desert Research Institute (DRI) is to run degrees and short courses in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) related issues.

Dr Lateef Oseni, Vice Dean, Faculty of Applied Sciences, UDS Navrongo Campus, who announced this at the ninth meeting of the Northern Regional Learning and Adaptation Platform (NRLAP) in Tamale, said the University had, therefore, begun developing course contents for the programmes.

The meeting was to allow NRLAP members, who are public and civil society organisations engaged in WASH projects, to make their inputs and collectively generate and fine-tune the WASH programme to be run by the University.

Some of the NRLAP members, who attended the meeting, included representatives from the Community Water and Sanitation Agency, Northern Regional Office of the Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (EHSD), UNICEF, Ghana WASH Alliance amongst a host of other non-governmental organizations.

Dr Oseni said the need for inputs from the end-user and sector actors in the packaging of the WASH programme was very important and a requirement to securing approval from the National Accreditation Board.

He said the programme would specifically train students for the WASH sector to ensure the effective implementation of WASH interventions in the country.

He said the University is working strenuously to ensure that it secured accreditation for the programme on time to start running it from the 2016 / 2017 academic year.

Mr Rex Jakpa Mumuni, Northern Regional Director of EHSD, said bye-laws enforcing sanitation has not been effective because of interference by powerful and prominent members of society.