Developing urban solutions in Uganda

August 2009

Pfizer Global Health Fellow Richard Edwards is now half way through a five month placement working with WaterAid in Uganda. He is being supported by his employer, Pfizer, in helping WaterAid in Uganda to effectively develop best practice guidelines for their urban program.

The urban context has very different challenges to rural areas, where WaterAid has traditionally worked in Uganda.  But together WaterAid and Richard are analyzing how to best address the water and sanitation needs of urban communities, as excerpts from his journal show:

WaterAid works with its local partners, demonstrating and stimulating ways of scaling up beneficial projects, and investigating the barriers to implementing these solutions. The most effective way to achieve these ends is to build effective organizations and lasting solutions.

The rural areas have been well served in the past and WaterAid in Uganda has put a lot of effort into this area, but a new emphasis area for them is to work in the urban locations.

The urban environment is very different from the rural, in which WaterAid has most frequently worked in Uganda. It is characterized by less ownership, greater crowding, and more poverty than its rural counterpart. Technically, the issues are different as well; borehole wells and rainfall harvesting much less feasible, toilet block pump outs are often more difficult because of location, if nothing else. Pick up of waste is more difficult too. Other factors such as the rapidly changing population and simply the pressures of urban living all make for a new challenge.

So, there are problems to be dealt with. Local ownership and commitment is a key factor to manage going forward. Sanitation is, however, not a glamorous topic per se (except to me perhaps) and getting people interested and committed and honest is not always so easy. Historically, when the NGO or donor leaves an area, things deteriorate a little or a lot. And there’s the challenge – getting the commitment to make a long term improvement and implementing lasting change in the way things are done.

And here is the opportunity to work on with WaterAid Uganda partners and create lasting solutions.

Physically, the unplanned urban developments (aka slums) are often in the lowlands where land is available or at least not spoken for, and the water table is high. These areas are often around rail road tracks as well.  These communities typically don’t have the local commitment and leadership that the rural settings do, either. Further, it is harder to find the labor and know-how to build sanitation infrastructure in the urban environment.

What has worked is that the funding has been of the loan format and not the outright donation (read - traditional aid). To date there has been success in implementing sanitation in urban areas when the local political leadership is strong enough to get people to want and to pay for sanitation services (latrines and maintenance etc).

In these cases, the leadership has found a so called beneficiary of the building of the latrine and these folks have committed to pay back part of the cost of implementation, normally 10%. In the end, though, sometimes 5% is what gets paid back. Some of the income comes from ‘user’ fees for the facilities.
But in the end the local financial commitment means that there’s ownership of facilities. Thus, the revolving funds will fund, get paid back (in part anyway) and then refund more projects. Again strong local leadership is what is needed in order to make this type of program happen.

From all my visits and meetings so far, it is clear that most unplanned development dwellers do want better and so the right financing is key to getting the facilities installed and the benefits realized.

My Best Practices work is coming along nicely, I think. I have presented the work in draft form and am waiting for comment and critique. But, I think that I can provide a preview here of the work. The Best Practices document six different headings as classifications and provides various narrative practices under that. Here’s an overview of what I have so far. Things could change somewhat:

People - There should be more local involvement by the communities. The historical model for aid has seen something (X latrines) built and then the donor leaves. One year later, the facilities are in disrepair because there was little planning done
to operate these facilities. So, local involvement is essential.

Sanitation - A number of problems crop up here for latrine facilities. If they are not in the right location, then periodic pump outs are not easy to actually do. But they have to be discreet to use and convenient too – so putting them out in the open won’t really work either. The Cesspool Emptiers’ Association has some concerns too about the things that are done currently. There’s room for improvement.

The construction standards are important too. There are too many stories of shoddy work, and poor repairs that render some latrines out of order.

Storm water is important too. I have heard twice that people in these communities fear rain fall because it brings cholera. So, drying out the neighborhood is important. These drainage ditches are made of stone and can do a good job but they have to be managed, kept free of debris and that debris has to be disposed not piled up on the side of the ditch.

Potable water - The water kiosks are functional but somewhat pricey and somewhat prone to abuse. One new technique that has been piloted by National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) is to use electronic cards as a prepaid system to dispense water. This promises to cut costs (perhaps by two thirds) and help make payment collection easier.

Waste - Beside the storm channel and general waste pick up issues, it should be noted that only 16% of people in Kampala use the contracted services – which are the only legal services for trash. So, in the unplanned communities, much needs to be done to make for effective trash pickup.

Operation and maintenance - Financial affairs are notoriously poor when it comes to collecting monies from the user charges for water and toilets. So, this needs to be part of the planning work.

Funding - Typically, a community can be expected to pay 10% of the cost of the toilets via a mortgage. This helps assure local commitment to the facility, but there are reasons why the money is not collected. In many cases, landlords are responsible for the sanitation but they don’t want to provide (dare I say it?) good land for this purpose.

The Best Practices review that I have been writing has moved along to the point where we can start to see how it will fit into or even define the Urban Strategy that is the ultimate goal of my and the leadership group’s work.

The Urban Strategy will help define how WaterAid in Uganda deals with urban projects in future and how they can make them permanent and sustainable changes for everyone involved.

I am now half way through this assignment and looking forward to completing it. But there’s more work to do and more to report on next time.

Read more about WaterAid's work in Uganda.