Ghana is a country in western Africa
with over 29 million inhabitants
although the country struggles with
poverty and inequality the economy is
rapidly growing and Garner's expanding
professional and business sectors open
up great prospects water sanitation and
hygiene or simply wash projects are well
needed in Ghana many people still live
without safe drinking water and don't
have access to sanitary facilities the
Dutch government supports innovative
businesses that improve access to clean
water hygiene and sanitation and waste
management we have a government in Ghana
which is pro private sector which wants
to give private sector a prominent role
in the development of the economy and
here we help we have contacts of course
and we do advocacy at the central level
at the national level but also we go to
municipalities to make sure that they
give the private sector also the role it
deserves the safe water network is a
perfect example of a company that
creates impact through a market-based
approach self what a network is focused
on achieving two main objectives first
of all is to be able to contribute
towards providing safe water access the
second objective is to make sure that
what our services are sustainable so
treated water from this station is
distributed to a network of 6-ton pipes
in the community at each of these
temples our customers get to fetch water
and pay for that service now revenue
from the sale of water is put in a
dedicated bank account and that revenue
is used to cover the operating expenses
of this water facility
we explained this post to our customers
so that they appreciate it and are then
willing and able to pay for that service
it is challenging but with continuous
education and interaction with the
community we are able to create the
demand for safe water in this field
businesses shouldn't be afraid to be
innovative
savasana is a Dutch holding enterprise
the designs constructs and operates
waste-to-energy factories in developing
countries it's changing the way
Ghanaians deal with waste by
transforming bio waste into energy this
facility generates some 100 kilowatt
hours of electricity and about 2.5 tons
of organic fertilizer on the average
daily we are set up to take organic
wastes from the market from the
slaughterhouses from industry from
households and all these wastes come
together and then we reach an it out
produce value out of it and goes back
into into the community as value-added
product it costs us a lot of money to
clean and transport the waste so
government must insist on making our
operational activities less stressful
and less expensive I feel that
sanitation is both an economic and an
ethical issue as a human being we have
the responsibility to keep the
environment clean I don't see waste as
waste or with as a problem but which is
actually value for making income for
making money scaling up a business is
crucial to create real impact the
construction company Micheletti joined
forces with triarii and together they
are building 100,000 houses equipped
with a low cost bio digester toilet an
innovation that is made profitable
through scale opportunity at the bottom
of the pyramid has to do
the numbers they farm or people who are
poor than there are who are rich but
what you have to be able to do is to
make sure that your price threshold is
one that they can afford we have been
looking for many years at filling the
gap providing low-cost housing to banan
part of the solution to low-cost housing
and the critical part of it is the
sanitation technology that goes along
with that the key thing about the bio
digester is that we take the price at
three hundred dollars it's our belief
that through economies of scale and the
application and through the right type
of manufacture that we'll be able to
bring that down to about two hundred
twenty-five dollars once you are
price-wise below the threshold then you
move from the market that offers a
couple of hundred houses a year to a
housing stock deficit in Ghana of 2.2
million then you have a real opportunity
the government wants to make sure that
China in and ghanaians in the longer
term are able to take care of their own
development it doesn't want to be
dependent on donors so in that context
it stimulates the private sector and it
stimulates also Ghanaians to take their
own responsibility only by doing this
you will see a strong economic
development in this country which will
also last