Harnessing fortunes from water source maintenance

Women and children fetching water from a shallow well by the Lukolo health centre.

Credit: WaterAid

WaterAid has been reviewing cases of broken water sources in Katakwi, Amuria, Mpigi and Wakiso to create a strategy on how best to promote water source maintenance so that potential benefits are realised.

All water points require servicing to ensure maximum yield and sustainability. In successful cases where maintenance is practised, communities such as Lukolo and Amuria have used the contributions collected for the maintenance of their water source to further alleviate their poverty.

Small monthly community contributions are collected for operation and maintenance. The accumulation of these contributions are managed by a Water User Committee (WUC) which then decides how best to use the money.

In the Lukolo community in the Jinja district, the community's contributions (600 shillings per month per household) accumulated up to 2 million shillings. The community then used this money to lobby the government for support with a new health centre. As a result, the government has now taken ownership of the centre, providing both drugs and medical staff.

The coordinator of the health centre Mr. Stephen Mugulusi says,

"Socially, the borehole has had great impact in improving the standards of living of our community. Lukolo is almost becoming a model village! Services are rendered to local people and diarrhoea cases have also reduced as a result of having clean water and full time medical attendant."

The Amuria village in the Katakwi district has 84 households that depend on one borehole. Through their monthly maintenance contributions, the committee managed to collect 400,000 shillings in their the water source maintenance account.

With this money the community started a soft loan micro finance scheme. They borrow money from the Water User Committee to meet their other needs and return the amount taken with 10 percent interest. This has been possible because of good compliance, cooperation and unity of the community plus a transparent Water User Committee.

However, many communities still face the challenges of a lack of cooperation between members, unwillingness by members to contribute towards maintenance and mismanagement by the Water User Committee.

Following its research WaterAid Uganda has drawn up several recommendations for other organisations in the sector.

• Ensure that the community is fully aware of the need to pay regular contributions and for water point maintenance
• Ensure that they are aware of other potential uses for the money generated such as seen in the Amuria community
• Giving the community a myriad of examples of the value of community contributions towards maintenance as way of strengthening ownership and alleviating poverty
• Continually raise awareness in communities of their roles and responsibilities in proper maintenance of water facilities
• Set up proper accountability systems in communities regarding their contributions
• Integrate and encourage Water User Committees to work hand in hand with local leaders to enhance respect from community members especially those who misuse the source
• Set aside resources for continuous periodical monitoring by all stakeholders on the state of the sources constructed