Water is Life: Community-based research for sustainable safe water in rural Uganda

G. Honor Fagan, Suzanne Linnane, Kevin G. McGuigan, and Albert I. Rugumayo

Abstract

This is a book about community-based research in the service of improving the sustainability and equity of safe water production, consumption, and management at community level in rural Uganda. It provides an account of the findings of a five-year combined social science, natural science, and engineering research work programme (2009–14) which took place within and with the community, in the sense that the community identified their water needs and related their everyday struggles with water resourcing to the research team, and they contributed to the outcomes. Our research programme began 14 years after the Ugandan government enacted the 1995 Water Statute (which provided the framework for the use, protection, and management of water resources and supply, the constitution of water authorities, and the devolution of water supply undertakings), 10 years after the 1999 National Water Policy was rolled out, and six years short of the delivery date for the Millennium Development Goals on water.

Keywords: sustainability, research capacity building, water, equity, rural poverty

The project

The programme of research which forms the basis of this book was Water is Life: Amazzi Bulamu, supported by Irish Aid/Higher Education Authority funding for research capacity building around sustainable water development. It involved the creation of a partnership between Irish third-level institutes and the University of Makerere in Uganda to involve Ugandan-based and Irish-based teams of academics in training Ugandan or Ugandan-based researchers to doctoral level in the practical action setting of a poor rural community. The involvement of the community in the programme from the outset was intended to empower the local community in the management of its own water resources into the future. Additionally, the programme was devised to build research capacity in a two-dimensional way – at third level by enhancing the quality of community-engaged research and at community level by providing access to the resources of the team of scientists and social scientists contributing to the goal of sustainable community water supply in that specific community. The project raised a number of key questions in relation to aspects of the realities of safe water in this community: accessibility, affordability, management, use of technological advances, impact of climate change, and gender relations. Issues were described and interventions were devised, all of which were based on sound and robust evidence-based research 'in the field'. In order to be truly capable of contributing to the agenda of poverty reduction, and have societal relevance, the research involved all key stakeholders from the outset.

This book tells a story about carrying out evidence-based research at community level in response to community needs; it is also a story about science being put to use in the building of sustainable communities. It was in order to assess and improve the community's access to and participation in water management that the researchers and the community entered the research collaboration. It was also in order to engage in the proposed practical action of producing and improving a community-managed sustainable water system for the parish. Overall, it describes and analyses what is happening in the water lives of a rural Ugandan community. In addition, it is a story of critique. It does not presuppose that community management is the right way to increase the sustainability of water supply systems, but only that it is the current emphasis in terms of policy roll-out of water systems as experienced by the community we report on here.

Global and national water context

The United Nations (UN) estimates that in excess of 1 million Africans still die every year from sanitation-, hygiene-, and drinking water-related diseases, which equates to approximately 115 Africans per hour or one person every 30 seconds. This is despite the fact that the targets for the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7C – to halve the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation – have been reached (WHO and UNICEF, 2012). Challenges remain and the WHO/UNICEF 2012 report highlights that global figures mask massive disparities between regions and countries, and within countries, with only 61 per cent of people in sub-Saharan Africa having access to improved water supply sources, compared with 90 per cent or more in Latin America and the Caribbean, northern Africa, and large parts of Asia. In fact, the 2014 WHO/UNICEF update estimates that 43 per cent of all people globally who lack access to drinking water live in sub-Saharan Africa. It also confirms that in cases where water supplies are not readily accessible, the burden of carrying water falls disproportionately on women and girls, and in many countries the wealthiest people have seen the greatest improvements in water and sanitation access, whereas people in poorer countries still lag far behind.

Access to safe drinking water has been greatly expanded through implementation of the MDGs. However, the MDGs will reach their target date at the end of 2015, and therefore the post-2015 development agenda will need to ensure the creation of a development framework which takes into account the inconsistencies between sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world, and which also reflects the fact that nearly half of the more than 700 million people who still lack ready access to improved sources of drinking water live in sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), as a result of a combination of government and non-governmental organization (NGO) interventions, access to an improved water source in Uganda increased from 39 per cent in 1990 to 68 per cent in 2010 (WHO and UNICEF, 2012). Generally, Uganda's institutional framework for water management follows a decentralized system in which powers have been devolved from the national to the lower levels of government. The structure operates at four levels: national, district, sub-county, and village/community. At the village level, water users or water user groups for a particular water source are supposed to decide on the type of 'improved' water facilities they want, pay their share (5 per cent) of construction costs, and manage the operation of the facilities, as stipulated in the Water Yes Statute (1995) and National Framework for Operation and Maintenance of Rural Water Supplies (GoU, 2011a). At the time of this study's inception, it was estimated that in rural areas 20 per cent of handpumps had broken down and 17 per cent of 'improved' water sources were not functioning MWE, 2011b; RWSN, 2012). The national average in terms of use of unprotected sources for rural communities was reported as 30 per cent (UBOS, 2010: 121). 'Unimproved' water sources are defined by the JMP as those that, by nature of their construction or through active intervention, are not protected from outside contamination, especially faecal matter; examples include unprotected springs, unprotected dug wells and surface water (WHO and UNICEF, 2000: 4). The logic of the community-based research was to place multidisciplinary research teams at the service of the community to help assess the reality of their water needs, to develop sustainable water provision and to advise government, community and household-level actors on practical actions to be taken to resolve some of the enduring problems, of which there are many.

The community

Focusing on water sustainability at community level required an in-depth focus; thus, one case study area, or social space, was identified – a parish comprising 15 villages. The parish selected for this research is located in the Lwengo District in south Uganda, an area containing approximately 11,786 households (UBOS, 2006), where the baseline survey showed that the majority of households earned less than 50,000 Ugandan shillings a month (Macri et al., 2013: 19). The survey recorded that while over 64 per cent of the households interviewed had three meals the previous day, 25 per cent had only two meals and 11 per cent had only one meal (Macri et al., 2013: 21). Almost half (48 per cent) of the households surveyed comprised more than six members and over a quarter (27 per cent) comprised either four or five members (Macri et al., 2013: 16). In addition, the main source of income was agriculture, either crop farming (62 per cent) or mixed farming (20 per cent), which obviously involved accessing water (Macri et al., 2013: 19). This community-based research was, therefore, carried out in a poor rural setting of intertwined economic poverty and water poverty.

This community remains water poor despite some progress nationally in this regard. What do we mean by 'water poor'? Poverty of water supply clearly equates with poverty of household. The time spent accessing water severely impairs household wealth. In particular, the burden of water carrying militates against income-generating activities for women, and increases the educational disadvantage of their children. In addition to this, the consumption of poor-quality water adds health poverty into the household equation, which further exacerbates the household's economic and social problems.

Health problems related to poor-quality water supply are rife in the case study area. The baseline quantitative research carried out in the area indicated that in the previous year 76 per cent of the households had members who experienced malaria, 42 per cent had at least one family member who suffered from stomach complaints, 37 per cent had members who experienced diarrhoea, and 18 per cent had experienced worms (Macri et al., 2013: 34). This information was provided by households that were asked to calculate the incidence of water-related illnesses in their households in the previous year. Diarrhoea and worms are two commonly reported problems resulting from the use of poor-quality water. Apart from the health implications, water-related diseases have a significant impact on the income of the household, with 67 per cent of respondents indicating that these diseases had resulted in increased family expenses over the previous year (Macri et al., 2013: 34). In addition, water-related illnesses had an impact on school attendance for 43 per cent of households, and led to diminished ability to earn money in the case of 38 per cent of households (Macri et al., 2013: 35). For this community, a great many of their problems stemmed from poor water quality, to the extent that 90 per cent felt that improved health of their household members and a reduction in the frequency of water-related diseases in their community were of paramount importance (Macri et al., 2013: 36). This was a community that recognized the importance of water all too well and believed wholeheartedly in the true colloquial meaning of amazzi bulamu, that is 'water is life'.

There is no access to piped water in the case study area, nor are there any plans to introduce this; by contrast, in urban areas, progress is being made on this front. In rural areas, water collection is time-consuming, and women and children invest an inordinate amount of time and energy collecting water. This community had experienced improvements in water supply through government organizations and NGOs to the degree that, according to our survey of the area in 2011, there were 10 boreholes, 24 shallow wells, and one protected spring. Almost all of the surveyed households were within a 1 km radius of an improved water source and, if these sources were properly maintained, there would be few quality issues with the water collected there. Access to safe drinking water was possible so long as the improved water source was in a functioning condition and householders: 1) were in an economic position to afford jerrycans; 2) were able to carry them; and 3) had the time to queue. Only one of the 10 local boreholes was functioning, however. Of the 24 local shallow wells, 17 were not working. When asked about the main source of water used, about 40 per cent of all survey participants said that they used an unprotected source as their main supply of water (Macri et al., 2013: 28). Therefore, the number of dysfunctional 'improved' water sources in this community was well above the reported rural average (MWE, 2011b; RWSN, 2012). The community was also above the national average in terms of use of unprotected sources for rural communities, which was 30 per cent (UBOS, 2010: 121). Use of these water sources creates ill health; needless to say, a combination of economic, water, and health poverty was evident among the villagers. Clearly, water problems remained in abundance and it was in this context that we were to engage in practical action with the community.

These are poor households and their water expenses can be crippling. When asked about their water-related expenditure, a majority of respondents indicated that most expenses were generated by the purchase of water storage equipment, normally jerrycans, and secondly, pump repairs. In this community, most households (45 per cent) used one to three jerrycans (5 gallons/22.7 litres per jerrycan) of water per day on average, while almost as many used between four and six jerrycans per day (44 per cent), and another 9 per cent collected seven or more jerrycans per day (Macri et al., 2013: 31). This is extremely time-consuming, given the reported problems with queuing, particularly in the dry season; it is also labour intensive, particularly for women and children, and debilitating, given the physical problems created for women and children as a result of carrying jerrycans on their heads. When asked about the qualities they would like to see in a water source, most respondents (70 per cent) referred to the clean and safe quality of the water, while 56 per cent of all survey participants said they would like to have access to an improved water source and 53 per cent said they would like the source to be closer to home (Macri et al., 2013: 32).

What we meet here in this book is a community of people experiencing water poverty imbricated with health, economic, educational, and gendered poverty. They continue to experience these difficulties after new water systems have been installed. The success or failure of these new water systems' operation is to some degree relegated by the state to the community, which is now held by the international community as being somewhat responsible for its own water – or, rather, water problems. Quality of water and access to it, given current national policy, is now considered to be to some degree the responsibility of the parish, although the government does recognize that the capacity for it to be delivered on a sustainable basis is dependent on the level of skills in the community, the quality of the leadership at community level, and the willingness or ability in a neoliberal age of the community members to pay for water.

This research programme began with a needs-based assessment, wherein the community told us that the key problems faced in relation to water were failing pumps, quality of water supply, difficulties in accessing safe water, management difficulties, and associated costs. The parish resources were examined critically, under the advice of the local community, in terms of: the quality of the water resources available; the changing nature of those specific water resources; pump technologies in use; the possibilities of community engagement with solar technological advancements for safe water; the governance structures for managing water, household access, and equity of access to safe water; the gendered relations of water; and the resilience of the community to the impact of climate change on water supplies.

The chapters that follow are based on the findings produced by the researchers as they worked with the community towards the application of their own professional expertise to the problem, its solution, and associated actions. The knowledge for the practical action recommended was constructed from the combined knowledge of the community and the scientific disciplines engaged, as they worked together in the context of the reality of the everyday challenges of poor communities accessing and managing safe water.