Austria in the lead

Austria takes over the chair of donor coordination in the water and sanitation sector in Uganda.

In the course of this year's Joint Sector Review of the Ugandan Ministry of Water and Environment, the German Embassy handed over the chair of donor coordination to the local office of the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) in Kampala. This makes Austria the donor coordinator in the field of water and sanitation in 2017/2018 in Uganda. Thereby ADA leads the dialogue between the donor community and the Ugandan partners.

In his speech concluding the Joint Sector Review Günter Engelits, Head of ADA's local office in Kampala, emphasized the good cooperation between the development partners and the government: "I am confident that the good cooperation between the Ugandan Ministry and the donors will be intensified and strengthened under the Austrian chair. We will continue to actively support the successful cooperation" says Engelits.

Water and sanitation in Uganda

In the recent decades, the provision of water and sanitation in Uganda has greatly improved. 70 percent of the urban and rural population have now access to clean water. Significant progress has also been made in hygiene. By now, 80 percent of the rural population and 86 percent of the urban population have access to at least simple sanitary facilities. However, high population growth, increasing urbanization and increasing pollution of water resources pose major challenges for Uganda in the future. The water and sanitation sector is therefore one of the focal points of ADA's work in Uganda.

Uganda as a partner country

Austria has been active in Uganda since the early 1990s. In 1991, Austria opened the first regional office in the Ugandan capital Kampala. The water sector has been a thematic focus of cooperation between Uganda and Austria from the beginning. Over the past decades, ADA's projects and programs in the water and sanitation sector have helped Uganda improve the livelihoods of more than 2 million people. In 2012, ADA was delegated by the European Commission to further expand the projects working on the provision of drinking water and sanitation. The EU provided 30.5 million euro for this purpose. By the end of the project, more than 350,000 people will have access to safe drinking water and sanitary facilities.