Saha Global
Building women-led water services for remote communities
The Trafigura Foundation is supporting an initiative to build women-run water points delivering safe drinking water in northern Ghana to make rural communities more resilient in the face of climate change.
The challenge
About 4 million people in rural Ghana live in last-mile communities, lacking access to reliable safe water services. Many of these communities in the north of the country also face long dry seasons and increasingly intense rains that are putting pressure on already fragile water sources.
In this area, many villages depend on stagnant rain-fed ponds that are fecally contaminated, exposing communities to water-borne diseases. In these areas, infrastructure is often poorly maintained, and household water treatment is unaffordable for most families.
The solution
Saha Global provides reliable, safe water services to last-mile rural communities in Ghana. To do this, they train and equip local women to run community water service points. Using simple, locally available methods, the women treat contaminated water and sell safe drinking water in their communities at affordable prices.
With support from the Trafigura Foundation, Saha Global will expand its programme to more communities in northern Ghana, work with local authorities to restore and improve local water sources, and integrate climate risk into the management of water resources.
Saha Global will also pilot a district last-mile water trust as a mechanism to finance rural water system operations and maintenance and reduce dependency on grants.
Partnership impact
By 2028, Saha Global aims to:
- Deliver reliable water services to 350,000 new people
- Rehabilitate 83 boreholes and extend maintenance to more than 500 water points
- Ensure over 2,400 jobs for women to run and maintain community water services
Visit the Saha Global website
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