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Access to safe and adequate water and to sanitation has been a global developmental priority due to their intrinsic impacts on the achievement of the sustainable development goals. Despite the implementation of several measures to improve access to safe water and sanitation, urban dwellers in Ghana struggle to acquire water and access sanitation facilities. This paper identified and examined the vulnerable conditions of households to environmental inadequacies of potable water and sanitation and measures aimed at reducing the risks associated with them in the Ashaiman Municipality. The study revealed that, access to adequate water supply was not necessarily dependent on the physical location of house units, but on factors such as lack of building permit, financial constraints, rental conditions, administrative procedures and ill-suited housing arrangement. Inadequate solid and liquid waste management practices and poor drainage systems were major problems identified in the Municipality. The paper argues that water, drainage systems and logistics for waste management in deprived communities must be provided by the local government and service providers through public-private partnership agreements. We conclude that, planning rules, regulations and procedures should be strictly adhered to and vigorously enforced by the Municipality in order to have a well-organized and planned urban environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a neighborhood-specific study of the social effects of poor sanitation in a poor neighborhood in a developing country city, Accra. It examines the challenges of rapid urbanization with respect to sanitation and waste management, and the burdens placed on poor urban residents in Sabon Zongo, a poor community in Accra. Like many poor communities in Accra and other large Ghanaian cities, residents of Sabon Zongo unable to queue and pay for sanitation services tend to package their liquid and solid waste in plastic bags and dump them indiscriminately within the community. The paper argues that the inability of city authorities to deal with sanitation and waste management in the poor urban community of Sabon Zongo go beyond the much discussed issue of health. This is because the inadequacy of sanitation and waste management in this particular poor urban settlement also has social implications. The paper concludes that while slums and poor urban communities may exhibit certain similar characteristics, they are not homogenous. Neighborhood-specific research such as the present study on Sabon Zongo offers opportunities for analyzing and understanding the internal dynamics, and the key stakeholders at the community level - critical conditions for tapping into the energies of residents toward addressing the challenges of sanitation and waste management in poor urban communities in Accra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]