Improving Environmental Sanitation of Slum Habitats in Accra: The Case of Nima and Old Fadama

Abstract

Slum dwellers are primarily faced with copious challenges including housing, water, sanitation and health. However, the prime challenge is poor sanitation which often de-faces the environmental aesthetics of the slum form. Albeit successive governments in Ghana are aware of this challenge, nothing significant has been done to improve the situation. This study used the survey method on a participatory sanitation improvement programme for the slum settlements of Nima and Old Fadama respectively. The study used SPSS and Originlab software for analysis of findings. The results indicate that 84% of respondents are self- employed and 86% are in the slums on temporal basis. We recommend that slum dwellers employed in the informal sector and the unemployed can be employed by the government into the local government system to manage environmental sanitation of their respective communities. This strategy will not only improve environmental sanitation of slum settlements but also create employment to very importantly the idle youth leading to poverty reduction. Also, the system of sanitary inspection of individual homes and communities should be reinforced in Ghana especially in the slums as a way of preventing temporal residents from pay less attention to environmental sanitation

Keywords: Environmental sanitation, Slum settlement, Improvement, Old Fadama, Nima