The Role of Social Policy in Development: Health, Water and Sanitation in East Africa

Social policy is defined as collective interventions directly affecting transformation in social welfare, social institutions and social relations (Mkandawire 2001). In many sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries the number of people living below the poverty line has increased over the last decade, while human development for many countries in the region has declined. In the East African region (Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania) the proportion of those living on less than US$1 a day was more than half except in Uganda (World Bank 2001b). Thus the majority of the population in these countries are poor with low levels of access to basic health care, safe water sources and sanitation. According to the Human Development Report 2003, all three of the East African countries fall within the low human development category (Figure 6.1). While Uganda and Tanzania have been on the low human development category, Uganda’s human development index (HDI) has been rising, from 0.409 in 1998 to 0.489 in 2001, Tanzania’s HDI on the other hand shows a declining HDI. Although Kenya was within the medium human development category, this has since declined to 0.489 by 2001, which is in the low human development category (UNDP 2003).