Published on: 01/01/2024
What comes to your mind first when you think about Uganda? Or rather, when you search on the internet for the country? Scenic landscapes? Stunning wildlife? Beautiful waterfalls and lakes? Yet if you visited the communities, the schools and the health centres, you’d see that people are poor and dying of diseases which are preventable – if only they had strong, safe and reliable water, sanitation and hygiene services and systems*.
Thankfully, things are changing. It’s a journey of small, but firm steps by many partners, often brought together by us, and all following things called ‘masterplans’.
Master plans rock! at least in our world. They answer the question:
“How do we strengthen systems and services, to give every single person in every community, school, and healthcare facility, access to strong, safe and lasting water, sanitation and hygiene services?”
They inform the work of everyone from the community plumber, to the international charity providing funding, to the person in the government office responsible for regulating the quality of the services. They outline how many people already have services, and at what level; what it will cost, and what partners need to do, to get services to everyone. And this gives accountability – so people receiving services (or not) can call for change.
Let’s zoom in to look at how a local masterplan in Kabarole district has influenced change nationally.
The Kabarole master plan began in 2018 following many years of work with partners from government, civil society organisations, the private sector, and communities. The Hon. Richard Rwabuhinga, Chairperson of Kabarole District Local Government has seen just how powerful a tool it can be as it has helped them to secure more funding and partnerships, and to reach more of the population with water, sanitation and hygiene services.
The master planning work in Kabarole has been such a success that the stories and evidence convinced Uganda’s National Planning Authority to use the water, sanitation and hygiene master planning approach in its national development planning processes and framework. This means that the transformation seen in Kabarole will begin to be replicated across Uganda. Their chairperson said:
"I am amazed at how much the water and environment sector is doing that is not getting enough attention. People want to associate with and fund winning innovations [such as WASH master planning work] and I am excited that the NPA can support the sector to set common priorities, avoid small and fragmented investments and pool resources to create more impact."
Prof. Pamela Mbabazi, Executive Chairperson, National Planning Authority, Uganda.
So you can imagine what that means to us here at IRC. We’re on course to spread impact with our partners – and largely thanks to Kabarole district.
And did you know that Kabarole means ‘Let them see’? It seems a fitting title for a district that’s helping us to reach more people across Uganda with strong, safe and lasting services for everyone.
Want to know more? Watch our videos about the importance of master planning and how to develop a master plan.
If you’ve chanced upon this blog, nice to meet you. We are IRC. We support countries to build strong local and national services, underpinned by resilient systems, that transform lives and build equity, justice and opportunity for all.
You can get a monthly fix of good news stories from our work, and help us to spread the word. Sign up to The Ripple Effect enews and become part of our community.
