It said out of a total of 105 communities in the district, 78 were ODF and expressed hope that the remaining 27 would attain the ODF status by the end of 2020.

Mr Alhassan Inusah Agambire, the Monitoring and Evaluation officer of the Upper West Regional Environmental Health and Sanitation Department disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency in Wa on Wednesday.

The Nandom District in the Region was declared a district-wide ODF in June 2019, making it the first district in the country to attain that status.

Mr Agambire said RICCS would intensify monitoring and scale up sanitation activities including; the implementation of the Result Based Financing (RBF) under the Government of Ghana/UNICEF WASH partnership in the DBI district to ensure the realisation of that target.

He said the RBF was also being implemented in eight other Municipalities and Districts in the region to help improve the ODF status in the region.

He said with funding support from UNICEF, they were also piloting a District Sanitation Fund (DSF) in the Wa West District to provide deprived households with funds to construct durable and resilient latrines and to repay with a minimal interest over one-year period.

Mr Agambire indicated that the DSF also had a social component, which provided poorest households with grants to construct toilet facilities.

He said the intervention would be rolled out in other districts and municipalities depending on the outcome of the pilot project in the Wa west district.

He noted that RICCS would also strengthen collaboration with the media in the sanitation advocacy activities.

Talking on the achievement for 2019, the M&E officer stated that 193 communities were declared ODF in 2019 under the RBF and IDA wash projects, which was implemented in all the eleven Municipalities and districts.

That, he said, brought the total number of ODF communities in the region to 701 out of 1,167 communities representing 62 per cent ODF coverage.

He stated that they had put in place measures to sustain the gains made in the ODF campaign and to ensure that households in ODF communities constructed resilient latrines and defecated in them to prevent relapse.

He commended UNICEF for instituting the Regional WASH consultant concept and mentioned one Samuel Adjei Nimoh, the consultant for the Upper West Region for playing a crucial role in facilitating WASH activities.

Mr Agambire also lauded the Jirapa Municipality for topping the ODF league table for 2019 with 45 communities attaining ODF status under the RBF project.