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Uganda Refugee Response Plan (RRP) 2020-2021, WASH Dashboard - Quarter 1, January - March 2021

Countries
Uganda
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Sources
Govt. Uganda
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Overview

Generally, a few indicators met or exceeded the set targets or standards during implementation in Q1 (2021) namely, water meeting minimum quality standards for all population groups and household latrine coverage for South Sudanese population group (77% against target of 75%). For the Congolese and other refugees’ caseload, the number of institutional sanitation facilities constructed also exceeded the target (259 facilities constructed against target of 200). The positive trend could be attributed to post partners prioritizing budget allocation towards household latrine construction and enhanced focus towards water quality surveillance.

Some settlements e.g. Imvepi and Rhino Camp in the North West are still receiving refugees. Without a corresponding expansion of the existing water supply systems considering the inevitable population increase attributed to the new arrivals, the per capita consumption water access indicator will likely decrease. Whereas some operational partners like Oxfam are currently implementing some new water supply projects to bridge the apparent water supply gaps in some settlements like Rhino camp, the delays in completion of the such projects presents a negative impact in terms meeting access indicator target thresholds. The relative reduction in water production from solar stand-alone systems during cloudy weather has a cumulative effect on the per capita water access indicator particularly in settlements which started receiving rains early. The situation is further aggravated when some systems occasionally break down and require major spare parts that are not readily available.

Also, owing to the 2021 sector strategy that lays emphasis on operation and maintenance of piped water systems as opposed to new constructions, the performance against the indicator of numbers of water schemes designs reviewed optimized and approved by Ministry of Water and Environment remains low due to few systems planned for construction mainly by operational partners.

Further, the slow process of gazetting systems for take over by utility entities in addition to the protracted and slow process of upgrade and take over of piped water schemes across the different refugee settlements by utility entities partially explains the below par performance against the utility management indicator.

Lastly, lack of clear guidelines of co-option of refugees onto catchment management committees is affecting tracking progress against the associated indicator. This is further complicated by lack of baseline data for the catchment management committees indicator.

Challenges

The most critical difficulties and challenges faced by sector partners is the ever-reducing funding towards the sector activities despite the increasing needs. This scenario has particularly been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic which dictates the need for COVID-19 responsive planning involving infection prevention, and control.

Also, most WASH partners normally implement short term projects without elaborate exit and sustainability strategies hence reduced impact of their projects.

Further the process of migration to the utility model of managing water facilities requires a lot of investment in terms of sensitization of the communities towards achieving stakeholder buy-in and community acceptance of the paradigm shift from community-based maintenance of water facilities.

To bridge the funding gap, several development partners like the World Bank, GIZ and KFW have designed specific interventions that leverage on the comparative advantage of an “inclusion” agenda that puts national entities at the forefront of takeover and managing WASH facilities within refugee settlements.

Key priorities

The key priorities for 2021 remains focus on operation and maintenance of existing water facilities and household sanitation improvement through household latrine construction using dome shaped slabs. However as mentioned earlier, the ever-reducing resource envelope cannot allow meeting all the priorities.

Changing community mind set towards adoption of the utility migration requires concerted efforts and time of the different stakeholders.

Also, COVID-19 will continue to impact on the WASH related interventions through the following.

  • Need to restructure community sensitization approaches to prevent COVID-19 infection
  • Additional funding for water system expansion to meet COVID-19 prevention needs
  • De-prioritization of some WASH activities in favor of some COVID-19 infection, prevention and control activities
  • Intricacies of implementing WASH activities for new arrivals