Uganda, Kampala: urban poor get access to cheap clean water

Over the years, shanties have sprung up in Kampala providing accommodation to more than 60% of the city’s population. However, government planning and funding has denied them public utilities like water since they are regarded as illegal settlements. As a result, poor people pay five times more than rich people for the same amount of water. [But now] Kagugube and Kisenyi in Kampala Central [have introduced] innovative interventions [which] promise to help the urban poor access cheap water.

In Kagugube the [€ 800,000 African Development Bank-funded Integrated Project of Water Supply and Sanitation Services for the Urban Poor] project is targeting 15,000 people. “These people buy 20 litres of water at sh100 [4.5 US dollar cents] while the rich pay only sh20 [0.9 US dollar cents] for the same amount of water,” [said Joseph Simbwa, a consultant with Winsor Consult, working on the project]. He adds that those who cannot afford the fee, fetch water from spring wells which public health officials of Kampala City Council ruled as unsafe more than a decade ago.

[...] The National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) offers two solutions. It has provided pre-paid water metres where users pay money for water and it is loaded on a chip [and it] provides toilet facilities: flush toilets connected to sewer lines, ventilated pit latrines and ecological sanitation.

[...] Nearby, Sawuda Bukirwa says the intervention has been timely since their toilet had collapsed and they were sharing a toilet with eight other households. “When people bathe, the dirty water flows towards my house. My children even have nowhere to play,” says Bukirwa.

[...] As a challenge, Simbwa says they have to break some houses to create passage for water pipes and access roads. He says the toilets that are not connected to the sewers will have to be emptied as soon as they get full and that the community is being empowered to manage the facilities. “We have been mobilising the communities, causing awareness and creating a sense of ownership,” Simbwa says. He says a steering committee is already in place to oversee the implementation of the activities and that other committees will be set up to manage the toilets and the water facilities.

In Kibwa zone in Mengo-Kisenyi where pre-paid meters for water have been installed, Nalongo Akram says they have greatly benefited from the project. Diseases such as diarrhoea have reduced and our backs are now safe since water is just at our door step,” says Akram. “Mothers used to keep dirty clothes in the house for days due to scarcity of water.” Akram says this kind of approach has also bailed women out of suffering because some men provide as little as sh300 [13.4 US dollar cents] to buy water and food. “Children used to miss classes because of frequent attacks from water-borne diseases like dysentery and diarrhoea, but this has tremendously reduced,” says Akram.

[...] Other areas in Kampala benefiting from the intervention are three parishes in Kisenyi and Ndeeba. Silver Sewanyana, the director of Winsor Consult, says NWSC would expand into other areas the moment it secures funding.

Source: Gerald Tenywa, New Vision / allAfrica.com, 24 May 2009

Nigeria, Katsina: state doubles water, sanitation budget

Katsina State [pop. 6.5 million] Government says it has doubled appropriation for rural and urban water supply and sanitation [...] from last year’s less than two billion naira mark [US$ 13.6 million] to this year’s over N4.7 billion [US$ 32 million]. The State’s Water Resources Commissioner, Nasiru Danmusa, said the increase arose out of the current administration’s efforts at ensuring increase and access to safe water and sanitation; as well as increased partnership with stakeholders and external support agencies.

Danmusa said from 2007 to date, the state had spent over N267 million [US$ 1.8 million] on various developmental projects in the area of urban water as well as semi-urban water supply; including rehabilitation of water schemes and construction of new ones.

[T]o check problem of power outages which affects water supply, the state government is supplementing operation of the State Water Board through provision of diesel for utilisation of back-up generators at treatment plants.

Danmusa maintained that to further strengthen the capacity of the state’s Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA), [the] government had [ordered] three sets of borehole drilling rigs with supporting vehicles and accessories.

He also stated that the state is collaborating with UNICEF in the development of a state-wide WASH Multi-Year Investment Plan and Sustainable Sector Policy, and that it is seeking the Federal Government, donor agencies and aid organisations for the completion of ongoing regional schemes and co-financing of new projects in the state.

Source: Danjuma Michael, This Day / allAfrica.com, 20 May 2009

Tanzania, North Mara: villagers fearful after mine water containment pond overflows

Water from a storage pond at Barrick Gold’s North Mara mine in Tanzania is seeping through containing walls, leading local villagers to fear their water sources are contaminated. Monitoring equipment detected abnormally low pH levels in the Tigithe River, in the Tarime district in the north of Tanzania beginning on May 4 following a period of heavy rainfall. Villagers reported that the water had turned a reddish colour.

District councillor Agostino “Neto” Sasi [said] that trees along the river banks were dying and that three children and an old man experienced skin problems after contact with the water. “The river has overflowed its banks into the fields and caused crops such as millet, maize and sorghum also to dry up. About five cows have died from drinking water from the river.”

[...] Though the mine is described by Barrick as operating at zero discharge, meaning no water is released back into the surrounding environment, villagers have long complained that the mine has negative effects. “This problem began in 2006. The impact of the contaminated waters of Tigithe river is huge,” according to Machage B. Machage, councillor of Matongo ward. “Cattle are dying from drinking from the river, fish are dying, plants near the river have all dried up and the community is complaining. “The problem intensifies during heavy rains because the water spreads to a larger area, with crops wilting, and the community making big losses.”

[...] [Mining company] Barrick responded quickly [to the reported spill], dispatching experts to the scene. The company’s environmental and water specialists found the river water to be acidic. A sample taken approximately a kilometre downstream found a pH level of 4.8, more than ten times more acidic than the typical pH of rainwater.

“The decreased pH levels are believed to be the primary result of water moving from containment ponds designed to contain water that comes in contact with waste dumps,” Barrick’s PR and communications manager, Teweli K. Teweli wrote in a May 14 statement. The discharge is from a pond containing acidic runoff water from the mine’s waste rock.

“To avoid seepage from the ponds, they are lined with a special PVC plastic liner material that is laid at the base of the pond. However, the liner material has recently been damaged and compromised by thieves. A secondary source is the adjacent temporary ore stockpile, from which water with increased acidity drains as a consequence of rainfall.”

The company statement says the increased water flow in the river has diluted the discharge, and pH levels have returned to normal, but it is also taking further measures.

[...] Councillor Machage rejects the company’s accusation of theft of plastic liner by the community [but Barrick's Teweli K. Teweli claimed that] “the PVC liners in the affected ponds have been replaced more than four times in less than a year”.

Relations between the company and people in surrounding villages are not the best, stemming both from dissatisfaction with the levels of compensation paid to those displaced by the mine when it was established in 2003 and from the belief that the mine has negatively impacted the environment.

Source: Terna Gyuse, IPS, 18 May 2009

Uganda, Kamuli District: sanitation campaign succeeds in raising latrine coverage

The pit-latrine coverage in Kamuli district has increased from 46% to 76% in the past two years, the district health department [Alex Mulindwa] said [...] Mulindwa said they launched a campaign to encourage people to construct pit-latrines in 2006.

He added that they used radios and patrols to mobilise the residents. The campaign was funded by the water department. Mulindwa said at the beginning of the campaign, some villages had no pit-latrines and residents would relieve themselves in the bushes.

“Bulungu village in Namwendwa sub-county had no pit-latrine and the residents had turned anthills into latrines,” Mulindwa noted. The district health educator, David Mbadhwe, said the district council passed a resolution under which a punishment of six months jail term was imposed on those who did not have pit-latrines. Mulindwa said they targeted having pit-latrine coverage of 90% by 2010.

Source: Tom Gwebayanga, New Vision / allAfrica.com, 18 May 2009

Uganda, Kamuli District: water scarcity leads to divorce

The Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, has said the scarcity of water sources in Kamuli district has led to many women being divorced and beaten by their husbands. Kadaga said women walked long distances to collect water, and when they delayed, their husbands beat them because they suspected that they were having affairs. She said the problem was common in Buyende sub-county. [...]  She made the remarks at a meeting with officials from the World Malayalee Council, an Indian NGO, led by its Africa regional chairman, Chacko Babu, [...] at Parliament. “Kamuli has 18 sub-counties and over 100 parishes but there are cases where four villages share one water source and others do not have,” Kadaga said.

Babu, also the vice-chairperson of the Indian Association of Uganda, said his NGO was assessing the water situation in the district to construct more water sources. He said he met with investors in India who were interested in building a modern health centre in the district.

Source: Donald Kiirya, New Vision / allAfrica.com, 17 May 2009

Madagascar: education hampered by lack of clean water

Because most schools in Madagascar have no access to running water, lack of hygiene and sanitation have become a major problem for children. Many pupils fall sick regularly, are unable to attend classes and hence don’t perform well at school.

Although government has promised to improve sanitation within its education system, programmes are yet to be implemented. To speed up the process, a national network of more than 150 non-governmental organisations, Diorano Wash, has launched a clean water initiative in 400 Malagasy schools that enables children to wash their hands at least once a day.

“[The water shortage] results from the fact that the country’s school construction programme did not take into account the required infrastructure. Funding for new schools did not include money to install running water,” said Diorano Wash national coordinator Herivelo Rakotondrainibe.

Lack of clean water is a problem in both urban and rural areas on the island, according to Rakotondrainibe, but the more rural the school, the more difficult it is to find sanitary conditions. In many rural schools, children are therefore instructed to bring a bottle of water each morning, which they use to wash, drink and for ablutions.

[...] According to a 2002 study by the Antananarivo-based National Institute of Statistics, more than half of under-five-year-olds die of diarrhoea in Madagascar, mainly caused by lack of sanitation. [...] According to an official survey of hygiene at Malagasy schools in February 2009, only 18 percent of the country’s 111 school districts have access to drinking water at their educational facilities. Only 30 percent have toilet facilities, while pupils in the rest of the schools have to defecate in nature.

[...] A 2009 National Institute of Statistics study confirmed that lack of access to drinking water directly relates to the percentage of children missing school, particularly due to diarrhoea. About 3.5 million school hours are lost each year in Madagascar, the study found, calculating that of the 2.5 million school-going pupils those who fall ill need about three days to recover.

Numerous schools in Madagascar have now started to educate their pupils about the importance of hygiene and sanitation. Ilafy Primary School, for example, introduces the topic of basic hygienic behaviour, such as washing of hands before meals, from Grade 1. Having soap to clean their hands properly is yet another problem, however. “The school district provides some soap, but it is never enough for all schools,” lamented [Aimée Rasoanirina, one of the school's teachers].

[..] “Elected political representatives have promised us a system of water supply, but so far their promises have not been kept,” said Landy Rasoatavy, a mother of three from Ilafy. She says she boils water for her children every morning, because their only source of water is a polluted river.

Until government implements sanitation systems in the country’s schools, teachers and pupils will continue to rely on initiatives, like Diorano Wash, which are dependent on funding from international donors. UNICEF and USAID have so far spent $4 million on school hygiene programmes in Madagascar.

But the country’s current political crisis might be an obstacle to a swift implementation of existing sanitation policies. Madagascar has been led by a transitional government under ex-Antananarivo mayor and former disc jockey Andry Rajoelina since Mar. 17, after former president Marc Ravalomanana was toppled. Newly appointed Minister of Water, Niry Lanto Randriamahazo, is yet to announce a strategy to improve the supply of clean drinking water in schools.

Related web site: WASH in Schools

Source: Fanja Saholiarisoa, IPS, 13 May 2009

Uganda, Kampala: schools to get water and sanitation project

RUBAGA, Kawempe and Makindye divisions are to benefit from a sh2b [US$ 900,000) water and sanitation project that targets garbage collection and maintenance of hygiene in schools. The one-year project will target primary schools in the divisions. Already, sh100m [US$ 45,000) has been put aside for ventilated pit-latrines, hand-washing equipment and water tanks. [...] The Community Integrated Development Initiative will implement the project in collaboration with Kampala City Council.

The project coordinator, Teo Namata, said a survey in the city divisions showed that the sanitation in schools was appalling as the majority lacked latrines. “In one of the schools, we found 900 pupils and only two latrines for all the pupils,” Namata said. She said teachers and pupils will also be trained on how to operate the facilities given to the schools. The school project involves rain water harvesting programmes. Schools will also be given water tanks for tapping water. A total of 3,610 students and teachers are expected to benefit from the hygiene education component.

Source: Juliet Waiswa, New Vision / allAfrica.com, 12 May 2009

Zimbabwe, Harare: water woes worsen

DESPITE the euphoria and optimism that followed the formation of the inclusive government, which has just gone past its first 100 days in office, service delivery remains woefully inadequate and a distant dream for a vast majority.

Rosemary Motsi’s plight illustrates the dilemma of many Zimbabweans. Her day begins as early as 4am in order to ensure she is among the first at the communal borehole. Dreading what has become her routine for more than a year, Motsi picks up two 20-litre containers to go and fetch her daily ration of water. Motsi says she wakes up earlier in order to beat the long queues that normally form at the borehole. One would be forgiven for assuming Motsi, a mother of three, is a hard-working rural woman who must make the early morning trip to the borehole some kilometres away from her homestead, a routine commonly associated with rural life. But that is not the case. Motsi is a marketing officer with a reputable company in Harare and a resident of East View Gardens in Harare’s medium-density suburb of Eastlea.

[...] For more than a year now, residents of East View Gardens [...] have not had water supplies for more than a year. They are among scores of other victims suffering the consequences of failed service delivery by local authorities.

[...] “There is only one borehole here and if you wake up late you will find the queue very long or the pressure of water so low that you will spend much longer waiting to fetch water,” Motsi said. “That’s why I have to wake up that early. If I don’t get up early the children will be late for school and I will get to work late.”

[T]he problem seems to have worsened in recent weeks, with residents complaining that the city council is failing to justify the inordinately high bills it is demanding in foreign currency.

[...] When the government the management of water from the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) and returned it to the council early this year, there was hope that the water supply situation would improve. That has not happened. [...] [Combined Harare Residents' Association of Zimbabwe (CHRA) chief executive officer Barnabas] Mangodza said problems of leakages in the water infrastructure and lack of manpower were some of the many reasons why the affected areas continued to go without water for prolonged periods.

[...] Water Resources Minister, Sipepa Nkomo said the Harare City Council needs at least US$46 million to rehabilitate the Morton Jaffray and Prince Edward water works that supply water to the Greater Harare area. Nkomo said government was relying on donors to undertake this exercise but warned the country was racing against time to restore normal water supplies to most of the affected areas before the rainy season starts and avoid another cholera outbreak. [...] According to WHO, the cholera epidemic that claimed more than 4, 200 lives has been brought under control in all parts of Zimbabwe except Harare.

Source: Bertha Shoko, The Standard / allAfrica.com, 23 May 2009

Uganda: Toilet Emptying Needs Investors

THERE are investment opportunities in emptying of pit latrines in Kampala and other urban areas, the World Bank‘s senior water and sanitation specialist has observed. “The bank carried out a study in Kampala and found that Kampala residents generate 800,000 litres of feaces per day (800 cubic meters) but the capacity to empty and dispose them of is only 230.000 litres,” Samuel Dawuna Mutono explained.

“This means more local people can invest in emptying pit latrines but the biggest challenge we discovered is that most of these toilets are not accessible, while some people are too poor to pay for the service,” he said. Mutono said only 8% of the country’s population is connected to the sewage system. “So how about the 92%? That is why the bank has supported this business linkage programme aimed at training members of the private emptiers association to improve their services.”

This was at the signing of a memorandum of understanding for a business linkage programme between the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), Uganda Investment Authority (UIA), Enterprise Uganda and the Private Emptiers Association at the Kampala Serena Hotel.

[...] “SMEs [small and medium enterprises] lack documented long-term visions, strategic business plans, adequate capitalisation, while others are involved in unscrupulous practices and have poor customer care,” Enterprise Uganda’s director of business advisory services, Rosemary Mutyabule said. “That is why the association will benefit much from the training,” Mutyabule said. 

Source: David Muwanga, New Vision / allAfrica.com, 25 May 2009

Tanzania, Dar es Salaam: seeking low-cost solutions to sanitation crisis

In 2006, Jenna Davis and Alexandria Boehm of Stanford University, were awarded a two-year Environmental Venture Projects grant from Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment to find solutions to the problem of diarrhoea-related deaths among children in Africa.

The focus of the study is Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania. Historically, residents of the peri-urban communities surrounding Dar have relied on water from surface sources or shallow wells that are in close proximity to household pit latrines. “That means when people defecate, the waste stays under the house,” said Davis, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and a fellow at the Woods Institute. “As a result, those shallow wells are very vulnerable to microbial contamination.”

To address the situation, city water and sanitation officials have drilled a series of bore wells that tap into clean aquifers deep below the surface. High-quality water is then pumped into storage tanks connected to sets of four to six taps. “Most of the water from the bore wells meets the World Health Organization guidelines for E. coli bacteria in drinking water,” said Boehm, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering. “Concentrations are typically less than 1 bacterium per 100 milliliters water.”

For a little money, residents can go to the taps and carry clean water back to their homes. Many people use the bore-well water for cooking and drinking. But so far, there has been little improvement in their overall health. City water officials want to know why and have turned to the Stanford team for answers.

In the summer of 2008, Davis, Boehm and a team of Stanford students and postgraduates traveled to Dar to study 300 households over a 10-week period. The research team hired Tanzanian enumerators to conduct surveys and interact directly with the households. The enumerators visited each household four times. On the first visit, they collected behavioral information, primarily from female heads of households (“the mothers”), and tested stored water and the hands of family members for indicators of fecal contamination.

Approximately 7,000 water and hand samples were collected during the study. Laboratory analysis revealed very high levels of bacterial contamination on the hands and in the stored drinking water of study participants, even though the deep bore-well water collected at the source was generally of good quality.

“There appears to be something in the transport and storage that is contaminating the water,” Davis explained. “It’s probably happening when people use their fecal-contaminated hands to scoop water out of their home containers. Another possibility is that the stored water containers used for fetching water are not cleaned regularly.”

A major challenge facing many households is distance. Some homes are 200 yards from the clean tap water, and a typical water container weighs 44 pounds when full. “We know that when people haul water from a distance, the first thing they do is drink it, then they cook, and then they wash their kids, themselves and sometimes their animals,” Davis said. “So they may not have enough water for adequate personal hygiene.”

For the second round of visits, the researchers separated the households into four groups. Each group was given generic information about how germs are spread through the five F’s—feces, flies, field, food and fingers. “We used pictures showing several ways to prevent the spread of germs, such as boiling or chlorinating the water,” Davis explained. “One of the four groups received only the generic information. A second cohort got the generic information plus the results of their water test. The third cohort got the generic information and their hand test results. The fourth group got everything—generic information, the water test results and the hand test results. The idea builds on basic health behavior-change theory: The more tailored and less generic the message is, the more effective it should be at motivating change.”

The preliminary results were surprising. Groups that received hand data or water data alone seemed to have a more positive response than households that got both hand and water test results. “It turns out that more is not better,” Davis said. “Even though we spent an equal amount of time discussing water-related strategies and hand hygiene-related strategies, there was a bigger behavioral change on the hand hygiene side than on the water side.”

The researchers are in the process of finalizing the survey data from their Environmental Venture Project. Meanwhile, in September 2008, Davis and her colleagues were awarded a three-year National Science Foundation grant to expand the number of households and the length of the study. “We’re aiming for a full year, which would allow us to monitor behaviors in both the dry and wet seasons,” she said. Data collection will begin in mid-2009, and the results could lead to low-cost solutions that reduce the incidence of diarrhea for tens of millions of children in sub-Saharan Africa and throughout the developing world.

Other members of the Stanford research team are Gary Schoolnik, professor of medicine and of microbiology and immunology; Abby King, professor of health research and policy and of medicine; and Cynthia Castro, research associate at the Stanford Prevention Research Center.

Source: Mark Shwartz, Stanford University News, 22 Apr 2009