Launch of Cloth, Flag, and Student’s Handbook at University of Environment and Sustainable Development (UESD).
The University of Environment and Sustainable Development (UESD) has recently launched a student handbook, university cloth and flag to give the school a unique identity and values.
The ceremony, which took place in Somanya, Eastern Region, coincided with the university’s third commencement lecture, themed “Securing our Environment: Our Water, Our Future.” The items were unveiled by the UESD Vice Chancellor, Professor Eric Nyarko-Sampson, UESD Governing Council Chairman, Professor Jonathan N. Ayertey, and UESD Registrar, Mrs. Mary Abena Agyepong.
Mrs Agyepong noted that the university cloth would promote student cohesion and good behaviour while the flag with the school motto would identify the school and inspire it to work towards the goal.
The student handbook, on the other hand, will serve as the central reference for student affairs. The University of Environment and Sustainable Development was founded in August 2020, with the goal of producing graduates who are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to be change agents in the environment and sustainable development.
During the event, Reverend Dr Anthony Appiah Duah, former Head of Groundwater Division, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Water Research Institute (CSIR-WRI), spoke about Ghana’s current and future water resources. He noted that the available water resources per capita were approximately 1700 m3/cap/year. The total withdrawal amounts to approximately 20.4 per cent of the country’s total available renewable water resources.
Dr. Duah explained that water stress was a concept for quantitatively evaluating the availability of water resources, whereas water scarcity was a function of available freshwater and human population or socioeconomic conditions. Water scarcity can be seen in reduced river runoff, declining groundwater tables, heavily polluted waters, and rising water treatment and supply costs, which he attributed to physical, economic, or environmental factors, as well as natural and man-made ones.
To address these issues, Dr. Duah suggested that the government must improve water infrastructure in rural areas, particularly in Northern Ghana, and take corrective measures to repair damaged infrastructure in urban areas.
Regulatory agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Minerals Commission, and Forestry Commission should carry out their assigned roles and responsibilities to halt illegal mining activities and take the necessary steps with stakeholders to reclaim degraded lands and restore water bodies to perform their ecological functions.
He also emphasized that to limit pollution to clean water sources, citizens must collectively refrain from disposing of solid and liquid waste into water bodies, excessive use of agrochemicals on farmlands, indiscriminate destruction of forest reserves, and unauthorized sand-winning near water bodies.