2.1.1 Drinking Water
Increasing access to improved drinking water is one of the targets of the National Development
Plan. Access to improved drinking water is also one of the Millennium Development Goals that Uganda
has adopted. Unimproved water sources increase the prevalence of waterborne disease and the burden of
service delivery through increased demand for health care.
Table 2.1 presents indicators useful in monitoring household access to improved drinking water.
Improved water sources include piped water into the dwelling, yard, or plot; a public tap/stand pipe or
borehole; a protected well or protected spring water, and rainwater. Lack of easy access to an improved
water source may limit the quantity of suitable drinking water that is available to a household as well as
increase the risk of illness. Access to improved sources of drinking water has increased from 67 percent in
2006 to 70 percent of households in 2011. Nine in ten households in urban areas use improved water
sources compared with only two in three households in rural areas. Access to improved water sources in
rural areas increased from 63 percent to 67 percent during the same period. The most common source of
improved drinking water in urban areas is piped water, used by 67 percent of households. In contrast, only
10 percent of rural households have access to piped water. A large proportion of rural households (44
percent) get their drinking water from a borehole. Ten percent of rural households get their drinking water
from a protected spring or well.
If water needs to be fetched from a source that is not immediately accessible to the household, it
may get contaminated during transportation or storage even if the water is obtained from an improved
source. Another factor that influences access to a water source is the burden of fetching water, which often
falls disproportionately on female members of the household....