Out of projects and into SWAP: lessons from the Ugandan rural water and sanitation sub-sector

Experience of Sector-wide Approaches (SWAPs) for improving rural water supply and sanitation in Uganda has shown that not all of the “negative” aspects of project are overcome. Despite the difficulties that RWSS has experienced with regards to SWAP, we do not urge Donors or Government to abandon this approach. However, for SWAPs to work, and enable Governments to develop the vision for development of their citizens, a high level of commitment is required among all stakeholders, a long time horizon (more than ten years) is essential. Issues of procurement and accounting procedures, management skills and systems in Government, inadequate remuneration of civil servants, heterogeneity between different parts of the country and the need for targeted support to disadvantaged districts, and donor coordination need to be fully addressed

Individual water sourcing: understanding risks and resilience to groundwater resource abstraction in Nigeria

Across much of Africa, domestic water supplies are increasingly dependent on groundwater reserves. As the cost of accessing these reserves fall, expertise becomes more widely available and incomes rise there is a rising trend towards the private commissioning of boreholes and wells. This nascent shift towards a distributed and increasingly individualised water supply may have many implications for the resilience of communities to future environmental shocks, which are, as yet, under-explored. Drawing on the case of Nigeria and new interdisciplinary research, this paper addresses this gap, through a specific focus on understanding the behaviour and choices of individuals and other key stakeholders which underpin this trend. It also seeks to understand the possible implications of this for the resilience of associated social and ecological systems

PSP in low cost shallow well drilling - the Mpigi experience

Mpigi District Council (Uganda) has undertaken work to provide shallow wells (hand augered and hand dug) since 1994. The current Ugandan policy is one of decentralisation and privatisation of rural water source construction. It was into this environment that the “Low Cost Drilling Project” (LDCP) was introduced in 1998 to: • develop a new low cost drilling technology (the Pounder Rig) which would be suitable drilling shallow wells in sub-Saharan Africa, • arrange for its availability in Uganda and • set up small-scale drilling operations through local private contractors. In order to develop the equipment and stimulate local uptake of the rig within the existing rural water supply sector, a partnership between Mpigi District Local Government, the Directorate of Water Development’s (DWD) Water and Environmental Sanitation (WES) Programme and Cranfield University was established in July 1999. This paper outlines the background to the partnership and discusses the lessons which have been learned regarding the technical capability of the equipment as well as the opportunities and challenges for its future uptake by the Ugandan private sector