Strategic policy initiatives needed to achieve MDGs - Ntiforo

Mr. Apori Ntiforo, a Lecturer at the Faculty of Applied Sciences of the University of Development Studies, at the weekend stated that the Millennium Development Goals targeted at ensuring environmental sustainability could be achieved through strategic integrated management policy initiatives.

He said one pertinent issue was that the implementations of plans, programmes and projects with the aim of achieving the MDG were interrelated, interconnected and re-enforcing.

He said the reduction in these MDG targets indirectly affects the others and that what was central to all was MDG 7 which states that by the end of 2015, the 191 UN member states or world leaders were to reduce to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

Mr. Ntiforo said this during a community sanitation durbar held by Zoomlion Ghana Limited to sensitize members of the community on the need to practice proper waste management and environmental sanitation.

“The achievement of MDG 7 through activities or behavioral changes aimed at maintaining and improving the standard of basic environmental conditions affecting the welfare of mankind, would invariably reduce poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women” he explained.

He said safe water, sanitation and hygiene remained one of the world’s most urgent issues adding that the burden of diseases due to water, sanitation and hygiene could be prevented through increased access to safe water and better hygiene.

The economic benefit of better hygiene, he added, demanded the integration of water, sanitation and hygiene in disease reduction strategies of the country.

He commended Zoomlion Ghana Limited for championing crusades on waste management challenges confronting the country, adding that, the company had played integral roles in proffering practical solutions to these myriad of challenges through innovative technologies.

Mr. Ntiforo said, the indiscriminate disposal of solid waste coupled with bad animal rearing practices could lead to the outbreak of Zoonoptic diseases.

He said “the battle against environmental degradation for sustainable development as a central pillar in achieving the MDGs is a shared responsibility”.

Mr. Laud Mike Tagoe, the Regional Manager of Zoomlion, said the efforts of his outfit at ensuring good environmental sanitation practices in the region and across Africa would not be relented until individuals understood the reason why personal hygiene and environmental sanitation must be a matter of concern to them.

He called on the chiefs and people of the region to inculcate the habit of keeping their environment clean to ensure a healthy and productive region and expressed worry with the disposal of polythene bags in the communities.

The programme forms part of series of community-based environmental sanitation durbars rolled out by Zoomlion Ghana Limited with the rational of bringing traditional authorities, sanitation experts, public officials and other community stakeholders to brainstorm on how best to tackle the environmental sanitation problems of their respective communities.**