The Broken Links of West-Nile’s Sanitation Supply Chain: Who will be the welder?

Abstract

The Government of Uganda wants to Achieve 100% safe water coverage and 100% sanitation coverage in urban areas by 2015, and 95% sanitation coverage in the rural areas in the same timeframe. These goals have not been met and the current levels of sanitation sit around 34%. Various methods of educational programs, international cooperation, policy implementation, and private sector participation have been attempted to raise the low levels of sanitation in Uganda since her independence. Yet, these solutions have only had meteoric success, with most of the results occurring in the urban centers of the country. The rural areas of Uganda have the lowest rates of sanitation in the country, and state participation in alleviating these dismal rates are few and far between. The local private sector may be key in filling in the gaps left by weak state interventions, and could bring improved sanitation to the more remote areas of the country. This paper explores the possibilities that the local private sector could offer in enhancing the sanitation supply chain so that solutions to rural sanitation coverage can be formulated in both policy and practice.