Effectiveness and sustainability of self-supply initiatives in rural water supply a case study of Bugiri district, eastern Uganda

Rural water supply coverage in Uganda is currently estimated at 65% with the unserved rural population relying on unimproved sources. To meet national and international targets, the Ugandan government embarked on the 'self supply approach´. However, no study has been carried to assess how effective the initiatives are in providing water to rural communities. Data were collected through key informant interviews, field visits, water quality sampling and focus group discussions. A total of 84 households. 11 institutions and 18 water user committees were interviewed. Hand-dug wells (27.4%), ferrocement tanks (56,6%) and protected springs (16%) form the different forms of self supply in Bugiri with an average functionality rate of 86.7%. Need for clean safe water and long distances to the few available conventional sources were the main drivers for self supply. Mean per capita daily water use for households with self supply sources increased from 10.6 litres to 17.6 litres at an average distance of 5.7 meters to a household self supply source. Increase in the amount of water obtained at household level resulted into improved hygiene (46.3%), reduced incidences of water bomb diseases (17.9%), reduced costs on water (6.3%) and income generation (23.2%). However, none of the collected samples met WHO recommendations for drinking water although 41 .6% were within Uganda's rural water quality maximum acceptable concentrations of 50 TTC/100ml. Overall household self supply initiatives were found to be highly sustainable than communal initiatives with sustainability indices of 83% and 72.7%, respectively, Water user committees remain largely unsupported and are unable to influence the full participation of community members. The study recommends continuous capacity building if the approach is to be scaled up nationally.