Ministry of Water & Environment
Plot 21/28 Port Bell Road, Luzira
P.O. Box 20026 Kampala
Uganda
Tel: 0414-505942
mwe@mwe.go.ug





Urban Water Supply

Urban Water Supply and Sewerage sub-sector is defined to include all urban areas i.e. town boards, town councils, municipalities and the city of Kampala. The urban sub-sector considers two divisions of i) large urban towns: 23 towns gazetted for operation by National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC)18 inclusive of 30 other satellite urban areas supplied by the 23 NWSC systems and ii) 201 small towns being all the other presently gazetted Municipalities, Town Councils and Town Boards outside the jurisdiction of NWSC.

In 2008 the situation of designation of urban areas changed with some Rural Growth Centres (RGCs) being gazetted as Town Boards and other areas being handed over to NWSC. Small towns are managed by the Town Councils and town boards as the Water Authorities and operated by Private Operators contracted by the Water Authorities. In terms of this investment plan, the changing demarcation between rural and urban will only affect the investment estimates for rural and small towns respectively while the total investment requirements for water services will not be affected since the rural sub-sector estimates include pipe systems for the RGCs.

Mission

The mission statement for the sub-sector: "provision of sustainable water and sanitation services to the population and economic activities in the urban areas of Uganda."

For NWSC the mission is defined as: To provide efficient and cost effective water and sewerage services, applying innovative managerial solutions to the satisfaction of our customers.

The sub sector is guided by the following sector goals:

  • Service Coverage – To expand service coverage to give 100% of the population access to safe water and appropriate sanitation by the year 2015, in line with the maxim "Some for all, rather than all for some."
  • Sustainability – To achieve sustainability of service delivery. This includes efficiency improvements and the reduction of government subsidies if they remain necessary.
  • Affordability – To ensure that a basic adequate level of service is affordable via low-cost service delivery and the implementation of a subsidy and tariff system, which is equitable and beneficial to the poor.
  • Water as a social and economic good – It remains an underlying objective to ensure that water, as a social and economic good, is managed in the best way, bringing consequent benefits