Research Paper Spatial inequality in safely managed water access in Ghana Alfred Dongzagla a, *, Felix Dordaa b and Fauster Agbenyo a a Department of Planning, Faculty of Planning and Land Management, SD Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies, Wa, Ghana b Department of Community Development, Faculty of Planning and Land Management, SD Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies, Wa, Ghana *Corresponding author. E-mail: adongzagla@yahoo.com AD, 0000-0001-8173-7714; FA, 0000-0002-0455-4073 ABSTRACT This paper examines inequalities in drinking water access among regions and between urban and rural areas in Ghana with a focus on access to safely managed water service, access to safe water, access to water on premises, access to sufficient quantities of water, and access to improved water. Microdata of the 2017/18 Ghana Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey was used and analyzed using descriptive statistics and Gini index. Nationally, access to safely managed water service was low (6.8%) with moderate inequality among regions (Gini index ¼ 0.27) and high inequality between rural and urban areas (Gini index ¼ 0.42). Among the 10 administrative regions, moderate inequality was recorded for access to water on premises (Gini index ¼ 0.20), and low inequality for access to safe water (Gini index ¼ 0.117), access to improved water (0.06), and access to sufficient quantities of drinking water (0.02). The results of the study reinforce the call by the United Nations for disaggregation of national data of the Sustainable Development Goals by relevant socio-economic and spatial variables at a sub- national level to help in the design and implementation of inclusive and equitable policies. Key words: Ghana, Gini index, inequality, safely managed water, Sustainable Development Goals HIGHLIGHTS • The study investigated spatial inequalities in drinking water access in Ghana. • Gini index was applied to measure spatial inequalities in water access. • Safely managed water coverage was 6.8% with moderate regional inequalities (Gini index ¼ 0.27). • Access to safely managed water in urban areas is five times higher than in rural areas. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY 4.0), which permits copying, adaptation and redistribution, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). © 2022 The Authors Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development Vol 00 No 0, 1 doi: 10.2166/washdev.2022.099 corrected Proof Downloaded from http://iwaponline.com/washdev/article-pdf/doi/10.2166/washdev.2022.099/1149888/washdev2022099.pdf by guest on 18 December 2022