Water, Sanitation and Schools: Exploring Policy and Good Governance Practices in Rural Primary Schools, Arua District-Uganda.

The study explores water and sanitation governance, management and practice issues in rural primary schools, Arua District. The issues and practices reflect and determine and shape children’s access to safe water and sanitation. The study reflects on the role of school stakeholders such as: the SMCs, the PTA, the School Administration; the central government, the local government and the CSOs in ‘good’ school-WaSH governance. The study used qualitative approaches. It thus adapted techniques such as; in-depth-interviews, document reviews and non-participant observations (for facility study). The study received views on water and sanitation governance issues from an array of stakeholders during a regional WaSH sector review and capacity development workshop conducted by UWASnet. The research findings show that government commitment and the will to embrace school-WaSH services delivery is improving. At community level, key governance aspects (‘software issues’) noted included; formation of water-user committees and payment of user-fees, maintenance of facilities, sensitisation on ownership among others. This showed a shift and improvement from the previously dominant focus was on infrastructure or hardware. However, much of the literature is either on water sanitation and very few treat the two concepts co-currently. Community participation in school-based water facility management was rather low, shown by poor facility safety, protection and maintenance. The study found out that, pupils’ participation in school-WaSH is increasing through child-led SHC; this is significant in shaping children’ WaSH behaviour and management practices. The findings also show that, there is increasing in-vestment in latrines and a few in water facilities. The district local governments’ capacity to deliver WaSH services is inhibited by sole reliance on central government funding. The district funds less than 15% of its budget. The funding remains inadequate and often delayed. The district also lacks adequate staffing particularly at lower local governments. There are different reporting lines on community WaSH issues: one health, second education and third by community development departments, yet some issues remain cross-cutting. The CSOs are making significant contribution to the school-WaSH sub sector and have strengthened their working relations with the local government through joint coordination meetings, field monitoring visits and cross-learning.