The TRANSFORM: Utilities Sanitation Challenge

Abstract

Many households in northern Uganda lack access to improved water supply and sanitation services (on-and-off grid) owing to the massive destruction of the water infrastructure during the protracted war involving government and the LRA rebels for over a decade making them prone to water-borne diseases. In addition the local authorities i.e. urban and town councils don’t fully have the resources to manage wastes i.e. liquid and solid given the limited logistical support they get from the central government for them to implement fully-fledged on-site sanitation services. This has therefore resulted into the clogging of storm water drainage systems since it is where the wastes are deposited by the public leading to eventual pollution of the nearby water catchment areas. Furthermore due to the lack of sensitization on waste management by the concerned stakeholders, a lion’s proportion of the filth is channeled into sewers resulting into high treatment costs of the discharges at waste and water treatment plants respectively.