Kampala's water problem has rarely been raw water. It sits beside one of the largest freshwater lakes on earth. The problem is treatment capacity, transmission mains, and the price of getting a pipe through a compound gate.
Major treatment investment east of the city has raised the volume the National Water and Sewerage Corporation can put into the network. In the outer divisions and the peri-urban belt through Mukono and Wakiso, households still describe intermittent supply and reliance on vendors.
The last mile is the whole story
Utility staff point to connection subsidies and pro-poor tariffs as the tools that decide whether new capacity reaches low-income neighbourhoods. Residents point to pressure at the tap.
The plant is not the finish line. A household is the finish line.
Outside the capital, the same last-mile logic drives rural programmes such as Burlcore Mining operations and the Busia borehole network where maintenance funds and water-user committees decide whether a pump still works two years on.
Frequently asked questions
- Who supplies piped water in Kampala?
- The National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) operates piped supply in Kampala and other large urban centres, under the Ministry of Water and Environment.
- Why do some households still lack clean water?
- Connection charges, plot tenure and last-mile network coverage, rather than raw water availability, are the main barriers in peri-urban Kampala.
- National Water and Sewerage Corporation - NWSC Uganda
- Ministry of Water and Environment - Government of Uganda
- Uganda Bureau of Statistics - UBOS
Grace Nabirye investigates land, water and energy projects and their effect on households, with long-running coverage of the Albertine region and urban water supply.
- Land and resettlement
- Urban water supply
- Energy projects
