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| Title: | Water access and its implication for poverty alleviation in Jinja district |
| Authors: | Bamwete, James |
| Keywords: | Poverty alleviation |
| Issue Date: | 5-Dec-2008 |
| Abstract: | This study sought to find out the role of water access in poverty alleviation in the rural part of Jinja district based on the 1999 /2000 Uganda National Household Survey. The District is located in Busoga region in Eastern Uganda where the government of Uganda conducted a Rural Water and Sanitation pilot Project (RUWASA) from 1991 to 2001, for the provision of rural water and sanitation facilities for poverty alleviation. Safe water coverage in the District increased from 18% in 1992 to 48% in 2001, and poverty decreased from 59.2% in 1992 to 37.3% in 2000. However, it is not known how water access contributes to poverty alleviation.
The study therefore, specifically sought to establish the relationship between safe water access and poverty. As such this document aims to give information about the subject to policy makers and development practitioners. Models of understanding the covariates of safe water access and poverty are presented. The first is the water access probit model, which shows how the characteristics of households, demographic, socio-economic, and the community affect water access. The second is the poverty probit model that shows how the characteristics of households, demographic, socio-economic, and the community affect water access and in effect affect poverty. This model illustrates that any improvements in water access by improving the factors that affect water access is likely to reduce poverty.
The study finds that the Uganda household survey 1999/2000 data imply a marked level of poverty and safe water access in the rural part of Jinja District. The proportion of households with access to safe water was 83% and the proportion of poor households was 54%. Community participation in water provision activities was very much practiced and was mainly by contributing money. The main findings are that distance from the nearest water source to dwelling, water source used by a household, the amount of water used per capita per day, community participation, the household size, age and education of head of household significantly determine water access which in turn significantly affects poverty. The distance of dwelling from nearest water source significantly affects the amount of water consumed per person every day.
The main science behind understanding of the water provision impact is that, other factors remaining constant, a decrease in water poverty leads to decreases in the impact of water related diseases like diarrhea, hence reducing the various risks like mortality and morbidity with increased productivity of the population thereby reducing poverty. However, the study finds an argument that improved water supply goes hand in hand with adequate sanitation and hygiene practices. Inadequate sanitation leads to contamination of the water in the homesteads and even at the water sources implying that water supply alone will not be sufficient to enhance a healthy population. This implies that improved safe water access is likely to alleviate poverty, but this alleviation is achieved in conjunction with other factors like improved hygiene practices which this study did not address. This could be one of the reasons why the District experienced a marked level of poverty given high safe water coverage.
Therefore, the policy implications are such that a hierarchy of interventions for poverty alleviation can be ordered from most to least effective in the following fashion: improving both quality and quantity of water supplies; increasing quantity of water consumed and improving water quality; and improvements in household sanitation and hygiene practices. However an improvement in only one of these is unlikely to lead to dramatic decreases in poverty and the related effects of say morbidity. Community participation in community development activities including water provision should be emphasized through effective mobilization of communities in order to create a sense of ownership of the water facilities by the community and hence ensure sustainability of the projects. In addition, monitoring of service coverage is needed in order to improve accountability and advocacy for the water sector. Accountability to the public in Uganda reflects good governance and sufficient service delivery. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/210 |
| Appears in Collections: | Theses & Dissertations (SS)
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Files in This Item:
| File |
Description |
Size | Format |
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| bamwete-statistics-masters.pdf | Poverty alleviation | 4087Kb | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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