Water obstacles

Uganda's challenges and obstacles in achieving safe drinking water for all:

• 40% of Ugandans obtain their water directly from rivers and lakes.
• 31% of Ugandans live below the international poverty line, which is defined as $1.25 per person per day.
• A shallow well with a hand pump, which is capable of producing about 10 liters per minute (2.5 gallons per minute), is considered sufficient for 300 people. A rural household is considered to have safe drinking water coverage if there is a safe water source within 1.5 kilometers.
• The India Mark II hand pump is a quality product that is used throughout Africa. It will operate 1-3 years without any maintenance (but definitely not forever). Village water committees are often started when a new well and hand pump are installed. Unfortunately, since the pumps operate 1-3 years uncared for, that's just long enough for committees to dissolve before they are needed to service the pump. (Obviously, that's not an absolute. But it's not uncommon.)
  
• Only one-half of Uganda's 200,000 wells are operable at any one time.
• Training local hand pump technicians has been a priority for a number of NGOs. It often happens that those with the greatest aptitude for maintaining and repairing the pumps are the talented individuals who move away from the villages for better jobs.
• Theft of hand pumps is not uncommon in some areas because of the value of the metal for scrap.
• The lack of good goverance (the prevalence of corruption) thwarts many good people and organizations in their work to provide safe drinking water. (The Water Integrity Network, formed by Transparency International, recently estimated that $5-10 million intended for Uganda water improvements is lost to corruption each year.)
• Water-borne diarrheal diseases cause 17% of the deaths among children under 5 years
  

In summary, there are great needs and great challenges. It will be wonderful to make a contribution to safe water even if it's just for a few. To them, it will be huge.

Paul