By Adwoa Munkua Dako

Water and Culture

World Water Day 2006 was celebrated on, March 22 under the theme “Water and Culture” to draw attention to the fact that there are as many ways of viewing, using, and celebrating water as there are cultural traditions across the world.  It is also to reinforce the idea that water and culture are both essential facets of human existence.      

The observance of the World Water Day was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly resolution in conformity with the recommendations contained in Chapter 18 of Fresh Water Resources of Agenda 21 of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED in 1992) which established the day to be celebrated every year on the March 22. Member states were enjoined to devote the Day, as appropriate in the national context, to concrete activities such as the promotion of public awareness through the publication and diffusion of documentaries and the organization of conferences, round tables, symposia, drawing and expositions related to the conservation and development of water resources and the implementation of the recommendations of Agenda 21.

World Water Day celebrates the importance of water in our daily lives and in the life of our planet. Since its celebration started in 1993, each year a different theme is chosen to reflect the many facets of freshwater resources and this year’s celebration has the theme 'Water and Culture.” since water is used and valued as part of each culture's identity. Without water, there would be no life on earth. Without culture; we would have no social identity. Due to its fundamental role in society's life, water has a strong cultural dimension.

Most cities, towns and countries are built near water; water is used in domestic,   commercial, industrial, transportation, and recreational among others. Most of the world’s economies are built on the strength of water transportation, hydroelectric energy and the products we buy and sell are all partly water, in one way or another. Daily lives on earth are built on water, and shaped by it. Without the water that surrounds us, the humidity of the air, the roughness of the river's current, the flow from the kitchen tap, our lives would be impossible.

Culturally, water is sacred, and is at the heart of many religions and is used in different rites and ceremonies. These include the baptism and blessing of faithfuls. . In Ghana, water plays an important role in all the rites of passage. These are the dropping of water on a baby’s tongue during naming ceremonies, through ritual bathes at puberty to the last bath during the mortuary rites. Almost all rituals begin or end with water such as the ritual bath of the widow before she disposes of her black cloth used for mourning her husband after the traditional one year. Before the advent of colonialism, our forefathers kept sacred groves at the catchments of water bodies in the country, where the chief and elders went once a year during festivals to perform certain rites. They prevented total entry to such places by unauthorized people through the institution of taboos, this way, they preserved the water resources. With time, however, and in the name of modernity and development, these sacred groves have been run over by timber trucks, chain saw operators and crop and cash crop farmers, and thus lay bare the watersheds of most rivers in the country resulting in their drying up and its attendant water shortages.   Also in traditional Ghana, most river bodies were considered as “goddesses” and revered making their pollution a taboo. However, we took away the taboos and our water bodies became the receptacle for garbage of all imaginable and unimaginable descriptions.

In recent decades, water has fallen in our esteem. No longer an element to be revered and protected, it is a consumer product that we have shamefully neglected. According to the United Nations World Water Development Report 2, there is plenty of freshwater in the world, although it is unevenly distributed. However, mismanagement, limited resources and environmental changes mean that almost one-fifth of the planet's population still lacks access to safe drinking water and 40% lack access to basic sanitation. Eighty percent of our bodies are formed of water, and two thirds of the planet's surface is covered by water Therefore water is our life.  The day is a unique occasion to remind everybody that concrete efforts are needed to provide clean water resources and increase awareness nationwide of the problems and the solutions in order to help make a difference in conserving water for the future generations from whom we have borrowed the earth and all its resources including water!.