This project aims to improve the living conditions in the rural district of Isingiro, in southwestern Uganda, where 20% of the population are refugees.
Context
Over the past 3 decades, Uganda has heavily invested in improving the water service provided to its 45 million people, but in some districts, less than half of the inhabitants have access to safe water. Many of these districts host refugees and tensions around water resources can arise at any time. Uganda hosts 1.5 million refugees, which makes it the first country of asylum in Africa.
The Government supports the shift from a logic of humanitarian action to logic of development, by encouraging a handover between the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the public operator, the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), for the responsibility of providing water in refugee-hosting areas.
Description
This project aims to improve the living conditions in the rural district of Isingiro, in southwestern Uganda, where 20% of the population are refugees.
The proposed intervention is an extension of the Mbarara-Masaka project (AFD financing - €120M) which plans to supply water to the town of Mbarara via a pipeline crossing the rural district of Isingiro. With concern toward social equity, the government wanted to use the new infrastructure to better serve the district it crosses.
The project therefore has two components of works and accompanying measures: one in rural areas, and one in the refugee hosting areas known as Nakivale and Orushinga. While the work in each of the components is conventional and similar, the accompanying measures reflect the specificity of the needs in the refugee hosting areas on the one hand and in rural Uganda on the other.
Impacts
The main goal of this project is to improve the living conditions of over 200,000 rural inhabitants in the Isingiro district as well as the 150,000 refugees living in Orushinga and Nakivale settlements. The project aims to ensure a successful handover between the UNHCR and the public operator NWSC for the responsibility of water services in the refugee hosting areas.
The project also supports climate change adaptation by substituting Lake Nakivale and the Kagera River as the source of drinking water to the refugee hosting area, thus reducing withdrawals from the water bodies, which are drying up and deteriorating day by day.
This project is carried out with the support of the European Union
21/09/2021
Project start date
21/09/2041
Project end date
20 ans
Sectors
District rural d’Isingiro, Ouganda
Financing tool
79 500 000
EUR
Ongoing
Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development of Uganda
The content of this project information sheet falls under the sole responsibility of the AFD and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the European Union.
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