International water targets and national realities in Sub-Saharan Africa: the case of Uganda

This article considers how to reconcile ambitious UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for universal piped water supplies with developing country realities in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). A concise process for effective reviews of medium-term national targets is proposed and is applied in an analysis of the current provision of piped water to households and shared community facilities in urban and rural settings in Uganda. Different disciplinary perspectives are adopted to review trends, the performance of key stakeholders and their scope for achieving new targets. Only about 5% of households have piped water supplies on their premises in rural areas in SSA. To achieve the SDG target of 100% coverage will, therefore, take a long time and requires continued support for the sustainability of community water facilities as a priority. The SDGs offer sensible long-term aims, but national medium-term target setting and reviewing remain critical and require realistic and systematic planning approaches, as well as careful global reporting of national performance against SDG targets. The authors argue that balanced incentives are needed to encourage stakeholders to strive for realistic targets in the medium term, without demotivating countries with limited capacities and resources.