Characteristics of study communities
The community’s members were from the Ewe ethnic group and migrated from the Volta Region to settle here over a century ago. They are, however, still considered an immigrant population serving as ‘caretakers’ of the land, which is owned by the indigenous population of the area – the Osudoku ethnic group. We observed that the community lies within a few miles of a large hydroelectric dam on the Volta River. Their livelihood mainly consists of artisanal fishing (small-scale fishing using traditional methods), supplemented by small-scale tilapia aquaculture, animal husbandry and subsistence farming. A few residents also work for commercial sand mining companies. Respondents reported that fishing is now less profitable due to the fast flowing water released during the periodic opening of the dam’s sluices. Due to periodic flooding from the dam, the land size has also shrunk, which meant that the original fishing families had lower incomes and had shifted occupations.
The community consists of 25 households with approximately 120 people living in small households of an average of 5 people. We saw that their houses are simple with temporary structures made of laterite with thatched roofs, scattered unevenly with farming plots occupying the remaining land space. The community relies on natural water bodies including the Volta River as their main water source. We also noticed that the sanitation coverage of this community is poor with access to only two simple dug-out trench latrines to share between men and women. Latrines have wooden slabs to squat on but no walls and roofs. Children are not allowed to use this facility for fear that they may fall into the trench. For children, therefore open defecation is the norm. The community members constructed the latrines together and replace them approximately every six months when they fill up. Most community members rely on ‘open defecation’ i.e. defecating in the river or on farm plots. One household had invested in a private VIP latrine with wooden walls and aluminium sheet roofing and a ventilation pipe to draw out smell and flies.
This community is inhabited mainly by indigenes recognized as the sole land owners within the study area. Their entitlement as land owners stems from being the initial settlers and through securing the land from marauding groups centuries ago. Land is traditionally divided among families according to clan affiliation. Over one decade ago, disagreements between members of the autochthon clans within the Area Council over rights to rice farming land generated a serious conflict resulting in fatalities, and widespread destruction of property and displacement of some community members. As part of the conflict, the traditional leadership was denounced. As at the time of the study, we observed that there was no functional traditional authority. The community, together with the fishing and farming communities, therefore rely on the district officials to manage public affairs.
The community consists of 768 individuals living in 162 households. Houses were seen to be of better standards than those of the fishing community, built of cement or laterite walls and with zinc roofing. After Ghana’s independence in 1957, much of the ethnic group’s land was acquired by the government to build a sugarcane factory. In 1996, after the sugar factory ceased operations, several commercial agro-businesses commenced on the ethnic group’s lands, including several rice farms, two banana export companies, a poultry farm and a foreign-owned sand mining factory. Presently, the amount of accessible farming land for indigenous farmers is very limited. However, agro-businesses employ many of the community members and migrant workers of the area who also supplement incomes with petty trading (informal income generation involving small-scale production and/or generation of small inexpensive items).
The community residents mainly depended on water from one public stand pipe while a few households also had a private water connection. Some families also used surface water from the nearby Volta River. The sanitation situation was somewhat better here compared with the fishing community. The majority of the community members depended on two public VIP toilets built around the time of Ghana’s independence. One was still functioning at the time of the study while the other had been slated for demolition. We could see that the community had themselves established two additional dug-out pit latrines at the opposite ends of the community and both were observed to be almost full and ready for excavation. It was also common practice here to resort to the river, canal, and bushes for open defecation. One household had a water closet, and a few others had built VIP latrines.
This peri-urban community will be referred to as ‘the estate community’. Following the collapse of the sugarcane factory in the early eighties, a large irrigation scheme was established under the government’s agricultural sector to support rice cultivation. The community is made up of 817 people, living in 194 houses which were initially all built by the government to accommodate government and public sector workers of the irrigation project. The current residents are still mainly government workers with the irrigation project and a few teachers and nurses. Some residents supplement their salaries with commercial rice farming, subsistence farming and petty trading.
We noticed that the houses for high income workers are made of cement but accommodation for lower income workers consists of block houses made of laterite with cement plastering. When the infrastructure was established in the 1950s, water and sanitation were of the highest standards with water closets (WCs) and in-house water networks and sanitation connections to a central sewage system. However, there had been no major investments in maintenance over the last four decades. This has resulted in broken down water connections and non-functioning WCs in a large proportion of houses, choked sewages lines and damaged water networks. These faults require large-scale repairs. We noticed that the affected community members have established individual dug-out latrines in their private gardens, with another latrine for the community kindergarten and one shared by the hostel complex residents.
Further information on the different characteristics of the study communities has been provided in Table
1 below.
Table 1
Table showing different characteristics of the 3 study communities
Ethnic Composition | Predominantly Ewe ethnic group | Predominantly Ga-Dangme ethnic group | Made of Ewe, Ga-Dangme and Akan ethnic groups |
Sanitation provision | 2 simple dug-out trench latrines, open defecation | 2 public VIP latrines, two additional dug-out pit latrines, 1 water closet, open defecation in the river, canal and bushes | Water closets supplemented with private dug-out pit latrines |
Livelihoods | Artisanal fishing, small-scale tilapia aquaculture, animal husbandry, subsistence farming, commercial sand mining | 2 banana export companies, rice farms for individual farmers, a poultry farm and a foreign-owned sand mining factory, petty trading | Government workers with the irrigation project, government teachers and nurses; commercial rice farming, subsistence farming and petty trading |
Land tenure | Migrant occupiers of the land (caretakers) | Indigenous landowners | Government owned housing |
Main factors affecting sanitation investments
The findings revealed that broadly, land rights under the following categories could be related to investments into sanitation. These included land availability for household toilets; livelihood developments; maintenance of toilet facilities; investments into household toilet facilities, indigenous land rights; incentives for sanitation investments. Also, a second broad theme, housing and tenure security could be associated with sanitation investments and the following categories emerged from the findings: land tenure; incentives for sanitation improvements; accommodation and rental issues; tenant rights and agreements.
Influence of land rights on sanitation investments
As illustrated in the community profiles, inadequate or non-functioning sanitation facilities resulted in community members’ sharing overburdened public and low quality private facilities, and use of open defecation as the only alternative. So the question may be asked: why did families endure these conditions and why did they not invest in private toilet facilities? One of the underlying factors correlated with this sanitation situation across the three different study communities is land ownership and land rights.
By the government’s annexation of traditional lands, successive generations within the farming community experienced decreasing size of land for residential housing and farming. Following land losses, the indigenes, as by right, expected compensation from the government including the development of infrastructure, provision of subsidized potable water, reduced electricity tariffs, and increased employment opportunities. A local council official expressed his dissatisfaction with the loss of land and livelihoods thus: “The government is not taking care of us because by providing land for two dams generating electricity, we should get light at reduced rates. The government has deprived us of our livelihood but we are not gaining anything”. Two other farming residents also expressed a clear expectation during the in-depth interviews that the government should provide and maintain public latrines. One male said, “The government is supposed to help….since we have been paying a toilet toll, the district (government) is supposed to maintain the public toilet for us.”
With the reduced availability of land, four of the farming community members also expressed difficulties finding available sites for building private latrines: “The buildings are clustered together so where will they get any space to put a toilet?” (Male Area Council official). A female farming community resident further explained, “We didn’t build a household toilet because we don’t have a place to do it. We don’t have land here”. The lack of entitlement to privately owned land and being unable to designate it for sanitation structures thus made communal toilets the only suitable sanitation solution for this community.
In contrast to the farming community, the estate community populated mostly by non-indigenes was observed to have superior housing, including WC facilities. However, according to the traditionally perceived rights to the land and the properties on it, the indigenes feel entitled to take over the properties and sanitary infrastructure on the land.
This has created tension between the indigenes and non-indigene officials as well as community members in the area. A male estate community resident said during his in-depth interview that: “The indigenes [from the farming community] have been complaining that the town is for them. They complain that we are enjoying (relatively improved facilities) in the estate but they are suffering in the town…so we should go to our hometown”. This was confirmed by a male indigene living in the estate who opined thus: “Most of the estate workers and residents are not from here so they seem not to care about the sanitation and the environment; they think they are only coming to work here”. An indigene male Area Council official remarked that the non-indigenes had better standards of housing and amenities such as sanitation, while the original population was not able to claim the lands, the properties on it or the benefits of the development: “We as Osudokus should consider ourselves first when allocating lands - before we consider non Osudokus - because we are suffering”. On the contrary, a male non-indigene Area Council official felt that “the town is expanding towards the estate community. The indigenes should appreciate the estate’s infrastructure since they will also benefit from any improvements”.
Non-indigene residents of the area are still considered ‘strangers’ by the autochthon population. In-depth interviews suggest that this has resulted in migrating and non-indigene residents being unlikely to invest in permanent houses and permanent sanitation facilities. Following a job transfer or upon retiring, most interviewed non-indigenes said they would leave the area. A female teacher in the estate explained, “I don’t have a toilet or bathroom and I am really suffering so if I find a better room elsewhere I will go and rent it. I have applied for transfer from the district several times”. In contrast, a non-indigene male licensed chemical seller who considers himself an indigene attributed his changed status to his marriage to an indigene. He disclosed during the in-depth interview thus: “I came here as a stranger to do business. Now, I am one of them since I married a woman from here - for security reasons”. This changed status has increased his willingness to invest in a local business and in a higher standard apartment with a water closet toilet attached to the central sewage system.
The fishing community residents did not own any part of the land. Unlike the indigenous farming community, the fishing immigrant community considered themselves unable to agitate for any community development projects. A fisherman explained: “The previous government built public toilets for the nearby communities (indigenes) but since we are Ewes on the indigenes’ land, they did not build one for us so we use the (self-made) pit latrine”. A male community member confirmed this: “We here are all Ewes on Osu Doku land. Hence, we are like visitors. We’re the only community in the district without electricity and water, and our (self-made) pit latrine is not the best”.
Despite this resignation, some expectations for improved community development and sanitation have grown from the pledges of aspiring politicians to develop the area: “We need a public toilet and piped water but the past political leaders didn’t care about us; our new assemblyman is trying to bring us water” (Male, resident, in-depth interview fishing community area). The elected local government representative further explained that the provision of water and sanitation facilities was central to the community and for leaders, this is linked to their future electoral fortune: “The district assembly has to come in and give the community water, light and a place of convenience (toilets) because if you don’t do anything for them, they will not vote you into power again”.
In summary, land rights and the desire to invest in sanitation facilities played out in significantly different ways in the three communities, leaving non-indigenes, temporary residents and people losing land to government development with limited incentives and opportunities to invest in private improved sanitation.
Housing, tenure insecurity and sanitation investments
Non-ownership of land was intrinsically linked to issues of property rentals. Thus, issues of housing and insecure tenancy conditions emerged as another cross-cutting issue related to the ability and willingness to invest in private sanitation. We discovered that the growing commercial agricultural businesses had created an increased influx of workers into the study area for short or long-term work stays. Combined with decreasing amounts of lands available for housing, this has aggravated the scarcity of accommodation. We saw that most of the in-migrating farm workers reside in neighbouring farming communities. This demand for housing was described by a male migrant banana farm worker thus: “In this town, they never built to rent but because of the banana farm they have begun to rent out their property”. People reportedly hired single rooms for between 8–20 Ghana Cedis per month (approximately $3–$9) at the time of the study with most rooms having no access to private sanitation. One male renter complained: “There is no bathhouse, no kitchen, nothing; so now I have to go and beg the neighbours to use their bathroom”.
Generally, respondents renting accommodation clearly communicated their unwillingness towards making a major financial investment into someone else’s property. A male rice farming community resident said “I am not supposed to use my money for his house. If I leave the house, then it is for the owner”. Respondents said that tenants risked landlords (or property owners) increasing their rent if a tenant made improvements to raise the housing standards, while refusing to reimburse the money spent by tenants. A female farming community renter said: “I painted the room myself. I thought it will be deducted from my rent but they said they don’t do it that way”. This was also the case for improving sanitation facilities: “If you are in a rented compound house, it is difficult to say you want to build a toilet. Are you going to charge the landlord for the toilet or would you do it for free and leave it behind when you leave the house?” (Male estate resident). Combined with the fact that most tenancy agreements were fluid and verbal, tenants’ right to negotiate access to sanitation were very limited and gave landlords’ low incentives and no obligations to improve sanitary facilities for tenants.
The problem of motivating landlords to invest in sanitation was a common theme across all communities, but was differently configured in the fishing community. Here, landowners traditionally did not charge tenants (land-occupiers) any rent. This was due to a long-standing traditional and oral land-occupancy agreement between landowners and land occupiers, in which the non-indigenous land-occupiers offer in-kind appreciations to the landowners for being allowed to be care-takers of the land. The fishing community’s headman explained: “Our ancestors only had to give palm wine and schnapps (alcoholic drinks) as compensation for living on the land since we are taking care of the land for the owners. Our people were looking for a place and they (land owners) gave the land to us”. This created a situation, where land-occupiers had access to very simple but no-cost accommodation. As in the farming community, this has placed no obligations on or created incentives for the fishing community’s landowners to provide private sanitation for their ‘tenants’.
In the estate community, land tenure was vested in the government, a large dynamic and mainly faceless authority, renting out to government staff. Here, we found out that government officials attributed the poor maintenance of its sanitation structures for tenants to the lack of sufficient funds since central budgetary disbursements to the irrigation project do not cover sanitation improvements. Furthermore, for the estate community, it was observed that the tenants of the government properties are unable to compel the authorities to improve the sanitation given their position as employees. One female resident said this, “since the project managers have kindly offered us accommodation when others can’t get a place, perhaps there is no money for renovations since not everyone pays their rent”. A male tenant similarly explained that: “Some of our toilets are not functioning and even though the irrigation authorities are supposed to maintain them, they too say they don’t have enough funds to buy the needed materials”. Interviews with officials of the irrigation projects showed that they disagreed and expected tenants to pay for maintenance of sanitation facilities: “You cannot expect the irrigation project to do all those repairs for the tenants. The tenants can employ someone to do the repairs because a broken down latrine will disturb the occupants more than the irrigation project - since they (tenants) are living in the houses”- (Mid-level irrigation project worker).
One senior irrigation project worker confirmed this view: “The rehabilitation of the sewage system is a major investment and since people are not paying much rent, the project cannot afford the cost”. The rent, which the respondents said was affordable and below market value, was deducted directly from the salaries of the irrigation project employees while other residents had to make individual payments. One irrigation project worker explained, “For a member of staff, they reduce the rental charges, which are deducted from our salary”.
Since the government’s local representatives did not own the properties or benefit directly from the rents being charged, there appeared to be little incentive for them to find the resources required for major investments to improve the properties. Our observations in the estate showed that the cost of necessary sanitation renovations was likely to be too high for workers to cover from their salaries, since systemic and large-scale repairs were necessary.
In summary, in-migration and short-term employments, insecure and informal tenureship, and lack of tenancy entitlements and rights were clearly associated with lower tenants’ and landlords’ abilities and willingness to invest in private sanitation – each trying to maximize and secure incomes and livelihoods in a rapidly changing and uncertain labour and housing market.