DEVELOPMENT NEWS
Water, health and gender equality
Vida Duti, the OPEC Fund’s 2019 Annual Award for Development winner, shares her story – a story that led Duti to dedicating her life to securing safe water and sanitation services for her own community, and others in Ghana.
By Fatma Elzahra Elshhati “I
’ve been working in development for the past 25 years,” says the OPEC Fund’s 2019 Annual Award for Development
winner Vida Duti. Duti’s interest in development work traces back to childhood when her father moved her out of the Ghanaian capital Accra to his hometown. “He wanted to give [an experience] of village life and for us to understand what it is to be poor,” she explains. This event has shaped her life:
“Every morning I would go with the children in the village to the river to fetch water. In the evening, there was no electricity, so we had to study by lanterns. There was a clinic in the village that lacked many facilities, so I would see people carried to the hospital. But they would be carried back, having died on the way. It really motivated me to work toward improving people’s lives.”
One of the fundamentals lacked by the local clinic was proper water and sanitation facilities, Duti recalls. “There were only two toilets serving the staff and patients.” Fast forward more than two decades, and Duti describes how she is “humbled” by the award from the OPEC Fund, which recognizes her remarkable work in striving for sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene
(WASH) services for the population of Ghana. “I’m motivated to do even more,” she says. Duti intends to improve services and living standards in the very community her father took her to when she was a child. On being notified she’d won the award, Duti immediately called the clinic, which still doesn’t have a reliable source of water. “I will not just be going back to support the clinic,” she adds. “I also believe that going back will motivate a lot more people to send their girl children, in particular, to school.” Duti, who is Country Director of the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre in Ghana, engages with local communities and government as part of her day job, too. The challenge of safe water and sanitation services, she explains, exists even in urban areas. “You see people on the streets with yellow gallons, as we call them [yellow plastic containers]. And they have to walk many miles to fetch water or to pay for it.” IRC works to provide sustainable solutions. According to government statistics, about 38 percent of the population still does not have adequate access to water. “For sanitation, the situation is more precarious,” Duti explains. About 19 percent of the population practices open defecation, as many people
still do not have access to reliable toilets. IRC works with national and local governments, as well as with communities, to improve entire WASH systems. This work includes overcoming challenges related to finance, planning and budgeting, as well as the implementation and management of water services. Having begun her career with
Ghana’s National Council on Women and Development, Duti is also a strong advocate for gender equality. She recalls that during the 1990s, after the government had passed a child protection and marriage law, “going from community to community, holding demonstrations” to explain how the laws worked. Duti was also instrumental in helping at-risk women uphold their rights to land and improved economic livelihoods. When it comes to water and sanitation, girls and women are especially affected, often spending long hours fetching and carrying water. By helping to provide safe water, Duti explains, girls can go to school earlier and women have more time for economic activities. In Duti’s opinion, water and sanitation are at the heart of Agenda 2030 and Sustainable Development. “Water is life and without life, none of the other goals can be achieved,” she says.
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