Analysing water, sanitation and hygiene data to guide sector resource allocation. A Case Study of Ghana

Despite the significant political and financial commitments to the water and sanitation sector, the Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water Survey (GLAAS), 2012 revealed that, as much as 83% and 70% of the countries that participated in the survey are falling behind their national access targets for sanitation and drinkingwater respectively. This raises the issue of whether the resources are being targeted to the areas needed to improve access. The research therefore explored how the analysis of household Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) data can help in allocating resources more equitably using Ghana as a case study. The research employed the disaggregation of Ghana’s Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) WASH data (for 1998 & 2008) by regions, rural/urban areas, wealth quintiles and gender groupings. The Spearman’s rank correlation test was used in assessing the relationship between per capita aid disbursement to the sector and WASH facilities coverage. A similar test was used in assessing the relationship between annual % Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expenditure on WASH and WASH facilities coverage for both rural and urban areas. The disaggregation revealed high disparities in access among the classifications considered. The extent to which household WASH data may be disaggregated to aid in the geographic targeting of resources to areas in most need is limited to the regional level. Results from the correlations test were largely insignificant and inconclusive. The insignificance of the correlations may imply that, improved targeting is more likely to have effect on access rather than the measure of sector investments or expenditure on WASH.