A recent report by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has revealed a worrying statistic: two million and two hundred thousand households in the country face poor sanitation, overcrowding, and unsafe housing.

Speaking at the launch of the report 'The New Slums and Informal Settlements Thematic Report' on Monday, June 30, the Government Statistician, Dr. Alhassan Iddrisu, noted that these individuals have established their homes in slums and informal areas.

According to him, nearly one in three city dwellers in Ghana, representing 4.8 million, live in slums, emphasizing that other countries experience even higher rates of slum habitation, particularly within the sub-Saharan African region.

"Roughly 30.8% of the urban population or 4.8 million people are living in slums, a ratio that exceeds the global average of 24.7% but lower than the Sub-Saharan Africa average of 53.9%.”

"46.1% of urban households, or over 2.2 million households, are living in slum conditions. That means nearly 1 in every 2 urban households is facing one or more of the four deprivations," he added.

He indicated that many households in urban areas are in environments that do not support housing and proper urban development. The data revealed that the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions are heavily challenged with slum conditions.With the Greater Accra Region recording 52.5 percent and the Ashanti Region 51.8 percent, the report noted that all of these dwellers live in rented accommodation. The other regions reported significantly lower proportions, highlighting a stark regional disparity.

"The Northern Region (4.2%), followed by Savannah (3.6%) and Oti (1.1%), recorded the highest extreme slum intensities. By extreme slum intensity, we mean the proportion of neighbourhoods that exhibit all four slum characteristics in the region.

"But even in more developed regions like Greater Accra and Ashanti, over half of slum households live in rented accommodations," parts of the report read.

The Service has described the findings in the report as alarming and called for a collaborative national effort to address growing housing and sanitation challenges.

To check the rise in slum communities, the GSS has called on the local government to implement strategies in districts and municipalities.

In February this year, Member of Parliament for Ahanta West, Mavis Kuukua Bissue, noted that sanitation issues, homelessness, and the proliferation of slums remain critical challenges undermining the health, dignity, and economic potential of our citizens, particularly the youth.

She cited inadequate housing across the country, economic hardship, unemployment, poverty, rapid rural-urban migration, et cetera, as contributory factors to the expansion of slums, homelessness, and streetism, which have also given rise to improper and indiscriminate waste disposal practices and the poor sanitation situation we have on our hands.

“We cannot continue to downplay the severity of this challenge, seeing the very danger it poses to our survival as people,” she noted.

Honourable Bissue proposed that there be a national dialogue on rural-urban migration and economic empowerment, deliberation on housing and urbanisation strategy for rural communities, a national drive on proper waste segregation and disposal, public-private partnerships, provision of labelled litter bins at designated areas and public spaces, and enforcement of sanitation laws, among others.