Prince Kisekka, 33, is one of the residents of Katwe, suburb of Kampala, capital city of Uganda. Kisseka is a father of one whose wife is now expecting her second baby. Thus, presently, the responsibility to fetch water has lies on him. “My wife is pregnant. That is why I came here to fetch water,” he justifies.

However, instead of the responsibility that his wife handed over him, which men from most developing countries refuse to accept, he is worried about shortage of water.

Kisekka says: “In our village, water usually goes off but it takes a lot of time to come back. For example, last time it came in a week time. It gave us a burden to go something like a mile to fetch water from Kabaka’s Lake in Lubaga Division.”

According to Uganda Water and Sanitation NGO Network (UWASNET), the price of clean water has been increasing from time to time.

“In most parts of Uganda water is not something that everyone can afford. To get a Jerican of water someone has to pay 150 Ugandan shillings when business goes as usual. If there is scarcity of water the price rises to 1500 to 2000 shillings,” said Grace Auma, Communication and Documentation Officer, UWASNET.

Kisekka and other residents of Katwe also face the same challenge due to the sky -rocketing price of water.

“In previous days, the price of water was 50 shillings per jerican but now it has increased to 100 shillings. By that time, we were even able to fetch three jericans by 100 shillings,” Kisekka remembered. “These days however, especially when it goes, we pay 500 to 700 shillings for a Jerican of water.”

According to Auma, whereas rationing and technical failures take the largest share in urban areas, equity and functionality are causes of water shortage in rural areas, where 31 percent of the population living below the poverty line.




“Most of water tapes which are found in rural areas are not functioning and being repaired. In addition, very few places use community management committee.” She remarked.

As Ministry of Water and Environment states, out of 955 Water for Production facilities 74 percent are community managed and 36 percent are privately managed. Out of the 710 facilities under community management, 258 facilities have established water user committees, but only 168 (24 percent) are still actively functional.

For Agrippinah Namara, National Program Coordinator, Uganda Nile Discourse Forum, inappropriate under utilization of natural resources contributes to water shortage and related problems.

“Despite the fact that River Nile cuts Uganda into two, many people are dying because of drought and shortage of water,” she quoted.

Water quality is another but serious problem bothering people who live across arid and semi arid areas like eastern and northern Uganda.

“The quality of water is too bad. But according to the situation there is nothing to do so you are obliged to fetch only what you can get around,” Kisekka told this reporter.

In fact 15 percent of Uganda’s surface area is covered by open water implying that the country is fairly well gifted with water resources. However, the water resources are non-uniform both in space and time due to geographical and inter-annual rainfall variability. Mean annual rainfall is 1300 mm, but there is great spatial variability averaging from as low as 500mm in semi-arid parts of Karamoja to over 3000mm on the slopes of Mount Elgon.

Rapid population growth, increasing agricultural, urbanization and industrial activities, poor sanitation facilities and habits, and poverty are causing serious depletion and degradation of the available water resources both in rural and pre-urban areas. According to Ministry of Water and Environment 2010 performance report, this renders fresh water a critical issue now and in the future.




Furthermore, the intensification of oil exploration and production activities is putting a lot of pressure on the quantity of water resources needed for production process as well as on the quality of water resources due to discharge of effluent from oil drilling and production activities.

All these pressures come against the back drop of increased extreme events (droughts and floods) due to climatic change that threatens socio-economic development and poverty reduction events as environmentalists argue.

Nearly 1 billion people, a figure that could increase to more than 3 billion by 2025, in the developing world don't have access to clean water it.

According to the UN World Health Organization, over 1.6 million people die every year because they lack access to safe water and sanitation, 90 per cent of them among children under five, mostly in developing countries.