Once again, I partnered with Amba Duaa Mensah Forson and with a little more than half of the summer behind us (already!), we are very pleased with the progress we were able to make on the research front.

This field season was divided into two phases. Most of our efforts in June were directed towards networking with our partner organizations, assessing the changes that took place in the four communities of focus over the past year, as well as disseminating results from our first field season. We held a Community Debrief in early June gathering representatives from three Local Water Boards (LWBs). The event allowed us to share our preliminary findings, get feedback from the community representatives, as well as foster a discussion amongst the different LWBs present. We are no doubt indebted to community representatives, CHF-Ghana, Megan Peloso, Leila Harris, and Elizabeth Koryoo Dapaah for the success of the event.

For the second phase of this field season, we are looking at the sachet water industry in Accra and are currently conducting a series of semi-structured interviews with producers, distributors, resellers, and street vendors. More specifically, we are trying to understand the trend from production to consumption, the implications for access to water in underserved areas, the intricacies of formal and informal labour in the industry as well as intersections with questions of development.

Cynthia