“Governance for Equitable and Sustainable Access to Safe Water in Rural Uganda”

Problem background
Significance of the project
Overall objective
Research question
Project team

Problem background

Uganda’s national rural water coverage is estimated at 55.6% (DWD, 2006; 2011). Yet, according to available literature, lack of access to safe water is both a symptom and a cause of poverty (UN, 2000; GoU, 2005, Mathew, 2004). Effects of lack of access to safe water include ill health resulting from water-borne diseases. For example, the birth and under five mortality rates in Uganda for households without access to safe water is twice as high as those with adequate access to safe water (MoH, 2002; MoFPED, 2002). Given the centrality of water to human health and dignity “not having access” to safe water is a form of deprivation that threatens life, destroys opportunity and undermines human dignity (UNDP, 2006). In a bid to eradicate poverty, Uganda has grappled with provision of safe water to its population in the rural areas.

In the last decade, Uganda has implemented social policy reforms in the rural safe water sub-sector. One critical reform has been a shift from a supply-driven approach to a demand-driven approach in rural safe water supply. This reform was intended to correct the perceived error of unsustainable service delivery as a result of state intervention amidst economic crisis in developing countries. Therefore, the model of direct state intervention was considered fragile and less fiscally sustainable (Batley, 2004). However, since the implementation of the demand-driven approach in the early 1990s, rural safe water coverage has not only moved at a slow pace but sustainability of water sources has equally posed a great challenge. An investigation to understand this scenario is therefore the subject of this PhD project.

Significance of the project

Drawing from the state of the art at national level and other scientific work, one tends to conclude that unsustainable access to safe water in rural Uganda is largely a governance issue. The challenge is not the approach used to supply – the ability of the communities to demand for water (demand-driven approach) or the capacity of the government to supply the water (supply-driven approach) but rather the governance structure in place to support and sustain the water infrastructure. The question to pose is not necessarily the supply or market driven, but rather how local water users can co-operate to maintain and sustain the water infrastructure supplied or demanded within a multi-level and multi-stakeholder scheme. Therefore, the proposed project is justified in order to contribute to knowledge about the role of governance and collective action for equitable and sustainable access to safe water in a financially constrained environment like Uganda.

Overall objective

To analyze how governance and collective action ensures sustainable and equitable access to safe water in rural Uganda.

Research question

What role does governance and collective action play for sustainable and equitable access to safe water in rural Uganda?

Project team

phd-student: Naiga Resty, MA- DevSt
supervisor: Penker Marianne, Ao.Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.
co-supervisors: Hogl Karl, Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. nat. techn.
Hauser Michael, Dipl.-Ing. Dr., Jung Helmut, Dipl.-Ing.