By AISHA NANKANJA
Most communities in northern Uganda are water stressed, largely because the area is semi-arid with savannah grasslands. The temperatures are normally high during both night and day, and the rainfall patterns are unreliable. Usually, the area receives little-to-no rain, which creates long dry spells that cause surface water sources such as wells and springs to dry up.
Those are the conditions that people in a region that has hosted Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps and refugee settlements for the better part of the last 30 live under. Currently, despite the presence of refugee settlements, most parts of the region are under rehabilitation.
People who faced the brunt of the war between the government and rebels groups such as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and West Nile Bank Front have chosen the path of healing from the trauma caused by war.
However, in 2014, when fighting resumed in South Sudan, it led to an influx of refugees which overwhelmed the ability of the Uganda government to respond to the situation and overstrained the reception centres.
One of the facilities that are stretched as a result is the water access points. Women and children suffer the most as they use a lot of time and energy in search for clean water, moving long distances from one block/village to another. During the rainy season, women dig holes to store rain water, which they use for domestic purposes like washing and cooking. However, most of the water is neither clean nor clear. Long queues and lines of jerrycans are seen in communities around water sources like boreholes, as people wait for water.
The waiting times can be long, frustrating and arduous. Some of the people can go for as long as three to six days without water since the water sources sometimes run out of water for extended periods.
During a site inspection meeting in Adjumani district on March 11, 2019, Carolyn a mother and a secretary for women affairs in Nyumanzi block E, said, “We have kept our jerrycans in the line waiting for water since last week. I have used one jerrycan of water for three days with my entire household”.
Children do not bath regularly or even thoroughly, so they suffer from water wash diseases like scabies and trachoma.
The government of Uganda through the Ministry of Water and Environment is doing its best to provide safe water and sanitation services to refugee settlements and host communities. This is being implemented through the Water and Sanitation Development Facility-North (WSDF-N) with funding from the German Government through Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (KfW), the Australian Development Agency (ADA), GIZ and the European Union (EU).
First piloted in south western Uganda in 1996, the
The WSDF was first piloted in the south western region of Uganda in 1996, the project was eventually spread to all parts of Uganda. Today, it has four regional branches with their respective headquarters in the districts of Mbarara (west), Wakiso (central), Lira (north) and Mbale (east).
The WSDF-N is designed as a funding mechanism for investments in water supply and sanitation facilities in small towns and rural growth centres in northern Uganda, including water supplies in former IDP camps. The project is working in close collaboration with the institutions in charge of camp management and other partners operating in the camps and hosting communities in the four northern Uganda districts of Adjumani, Arua, Kiryandongo and Yumbe.
The water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) component of this project includes the construction of piped water supply systems and faecal sludge management infrastructure. It also involves setting up operation and maintenance structures in the settlements that include gender-balanced water boards, community mobilization, and water supply designs and development.
Several districts have benefitted from the project. For instance, in 2017, WSNDF-N constructed a Shs2.4 bn water piped water supply system for Kalongo town council in Agago district. The project, which is now managed by the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) serves 11,300 people.
In mid-February 2019, the ministry also handed over four blocks of Precast Dry Pit Latrines (two apiece for girls and boys) to the management of Alutkot Primary School in Loro Sub County, Oyam District. The sanitation facilities will serve a number of 906 pupils studying at this government school.
Similar facilities have been implemented in Apac Municipality (Apac Primary School), Aduku Town council (Aduku Primary School), Ibuje Sub County (Ibuje Primary School), Kamdini Town Council (Kamdini Primary School), Oyam Town Council (Anyeke Health Centre), and Ibuje Health Centre III, all of which are in Lango sub-region of northern Uganda.
The author in a graduate trainee sociologist who is currently working with the Ministry of Water and Environment’s Water and Sanitation Development Facility in Northern Uganda.
