Building Resilience and
Socio-Economic Development
GOAL works in 16 countries across the world to bring humanitarian assistance to
people in crisis and to support those recovering from crisis towards sustainable
development. First operational in the late 1970’s, GOAL Uganda’s country
programming aims to build resilience and support socio-economic development.
GOAL Uganda has a team of 114 committed people who manage an annual operating
budget of €4.7million (2015) and reach approximately 300,000 people annually in
remote and rural areas of the north and east of Uganda.
GOAL uses a mixture of direct implementation and partnerships with national and
international civil society organizations, local government, the private sector, and
communities, to support socio-economic development. Our focal districts are Bugiri
and Namayingo in the SE, Abim and Kaabong in Karamoja and Agago in Acholiland.
GOAL Uganda has a strategic focus on health and livelihoods, and three core
programme competencies:
Agricultural
Livelihoods
Sustainable
WASH
Health
Accountability
Increased incomes
by stimulating
agricultural markets
in Northern
Uganda
Sustained health
improvements
through water point
sustainability,
improved sanitation,
and lasting behaviour
change
Increased learning on
social accountability
approaches through
a large randomised
controlled trial (RCT)
across 16 districts
GOAL Uganda, WASH Capacity Statement, April 2015
Sustaining community water,
promoting sanitation & hygiene (WASH)
Access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation are critical for health, human
dignity, and economic productivity. Uganda is making good progress in providing
access to safe water, although sustaining functionality is a concern and sanitation and
hygiene practices are still poor. In order to support Uganda’s progress, GOAL
implements a comprehensive package of WASH interventions using the following
strategy:
Safe
Safe Water Supply
Construction and rehabilitation of 374 rural community water
points using the Demand Responsive Approach (DRA)
which directly links new water provision to sanitation targets
and financial contribution for 104,100 people. GOAL is
committed to providing the most appropriate technology
possible whilst taking into consideration whole life costs. For
this reason hand pump technical specifications have recently
been upgraded to eliminate the issue of rapid corrosion
caused by aggressive waters and substandard materials
available in the local markets – thereby reducing the ongoing
financial burden to the community
70%
of
households*
now live
within a
30min walk of
an improved
water source
Water Operation & Maintenance
Community management remains the approach to rural
water point service delivery in Uganda. While there are
examples of successfully managed water points, the vast
majority still suffer from weak or failed management that
results in slow, inefficient, or non-existing O&M regimes. This
in turn has resulted in a relatively stable level of nonfunctionality that has proven difficult to reduce without
significant, prolonged external support.
GOAL believes that a vibrant and profitable private sector can
provide sustainable repair and maintenance services. Our
market analysis drives our strategic investments with private
sector partners where GOAL is innovating with market
systems in order to stimulate sustainable private sector
solutions for operation and maintenance of community water.
GOAL is working with local government to support their
regulatory role, and with 500 Water User Committees
(WUCs) to create demand for routine water maintenance and
repairs.
GOAL Uganda, WASH Capacity Statement, April 2015
81%
of water
points are
functional
66%
of Water User
Committees
are functional
*Unless otherwise stated, all
statistics used in this document
are for communities in which
GOAL works
GOAL is also working with mobile money service providers to address
issues of security and transparency that currently continue to undermine
the long-term viability of WUCs – ensuring funds are raised and secure
for sustainable operation and maintenance (O&M).
Sanitation
Using Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) and
Sanitation Marketing, GOAL is stimulating rural communities
to progressively climb the sanitation ladder. GOAL considers
CLTS to be the most suitable sanitation approach to apply at
scale and utilises this approach in all countries with rural
sanitation programmes. However, GOAL also acknowledges
that CLTS alone will not necessarily result in sustained
access to improved sanitation. To achieve this, access to a
range of sanitation products and services are vital to facilitate
households’ incremental steps along the sanitation ladder.
GOAL believes that a vibrant, profitable private sector can
provide and market choice of sanitation products – including
those for menstrual hygiene.
GOAL uses the CHAST approach to support sanitation and
hygiene in schools.
Hygiene
Progress on improving hygiene across Uganda is poor. Only
28% of GOAL supported households have a hand washing
station in their home (compared to the district average of
19%). Our collectively poor progress in hygiene is directly
linked to ineffective approaches to behavioural change.
Consequently, GOAL is now using the behavioural change
methodology Community Conversations in order to
empower communities to analyse their behaviours and
jointly decide and implement their own solutions.
Coordination and Networking
GOAL works at district, national, and international levels to
support coordination, learning, good practice, joint
influencing with other sectors, and local government budget
planning. In Uganda, GOAL is working with key sector actors
to develop ‘practitioners’ learning forums’ aimed at sharing
ideas, experiences, information, and results relating to major
sector challenges.
GOAL Uganda, WASH Capacity Statement, April 2015
49%
of villages
triggered
became ODF
83%
of households
use an
improved
latrine
25
villages
became ODF
in a record 5
months using
the DRA
33%
National
access to
HWF
57%
have a
rubbish pit
Cross Cutting Issues
In order to support resilience, GOAL integrates important cross cutting issues into
WASH programming such as reproductive health (including HIV), chronic
malnutrition, disaster risk reduction, gender, and alcohol.
Technical Capacity
GOAL has a highly skilled global technical team which provides substantial technical
expertise in water and sanitation, market and shared value development approaches,
behavioural change, and health and nutrition; to support the GOAL Uganda WASH
team. The team is led by our national WASH Advisor who supports four WASH Project
Managers, a Business Development Mentor, and a Grant Management Team.
National WASH Partners
Abim
Agago
Bugiri / Namayingo
Kaabong
Collaborations and Partnerships
International Memberships
People In Aid • ALNAP • InsideNGO • CRED • The Inter-Agency Procurement Group
• Irish Joint Consortium on Gender Based Violence • The Irish Development
Education Association (IDEA) • CORE Group • Sustainable Sanitation Alliance
(SuSanA) • The European Interagency Security Forum (EISF).
Contacts
Namwebe Mary
WASH Advisor
mnamwebe@ug.goal.ie
Tel: +256 774 516 542
Alan Reade
Regional WASH Coordinator
areade@goal.ie
Tel: +256 788 826 640
GOAL Uganda, WASH Capacity Statement, April 2015
Fiona Mitchell
County Director
fmitchel@ug.goal.ie
Tel: +256 782 452 250
GOAL Uganda, WASH Capacity Statement, April 2015