Prime Minister Mark Rutte meets with representatives from Family Health Hospital

On 30 November 2017, Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands met with representatives from the Family Health Hospital, the first privately owned medical school in Ghana, that is training doctors and nurses from seven countries. The hospital was selected due to its eco-friendly approach to waste management practices, that it was able to develop as a beneficiary of the SNV "P2P: Catalysing WASH from Possible to Profitable" project.

The increasing number of students and patients in the hospital makes waste management critical. To improve these processes, the hospital built a biogas plant and an incinerator which receives all the waste from the hospital through a network of underground pipes. This results in a hygienic and safe way to manage waste, and allows the hospital to save costs, enabling it to provide affordable health care to people in the community. During the visit, the Prime minister presented a certificate of recognition to Family Health Hospital for its participation in the project.

The meeting with hospital representatives was part of the Prime Minister's tour of the country, intended to get acquainted with different interventions funded by the Netherlands Government in Ghana.

SNV is implementing the "Catalysing WASH: From Possible to Profitable" (P2P) project in partnership with the Fidelity Bank, with support from the Embassy of The Kingdom of Netherlands (EKN) in Ghana. The goal of the P2P project is to increase access to WASH services at the household level by scaling up access to finance and capacity development services of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME).

The P2P project uses a private sector development approach, to maximise value for money in the WASH sector. The project is tailored to provide access to finance at both the household and MSME level through a €4 million revolving fund which allows businesses operating in the WASH sector to borrow at 10% per annum. Loans are typically for 24 months. Fidelity Bank also lends to MFIs, Savings and Loans Companies and Rural Banks to on-lend to their customers at the household level.

In addition, P2P provides technical assistance to MSMEs where required, to deliver high quality products, formulate business plans allowing them to obtain loans from financial institutions and be able to adequately respond to the growing demand for WASH services by households. To date, the project has reached over 28,000 households with improved WASH facilities through direct loans and services rendered by the 112 WASH enterprises who have accessed the fund. The project has so far made disbursements to the tune of GHC 7.4 million (1.5 million euros) nationwide. These loans have been used to finance projects in areas of liquid & solid waste management, water provision and household latrine construction. So far, the program has shown that is possible to engage the private sector in providing water, sanitation and hygiene services in a collaborative effort with public investments.

Also read about Prime Minister Rutte's and French President Macron's meeting with Ghanaian entrepreneurs in the Impact Hub in Accra.