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On several occasions, running water entered my house whenever it rained heavily,” Sarah Mukhaye, a landslide survivor, says.

The traumatising experience is still fresh on Mukhaye’s mind as she continues to narrate the ordeal, “I lost a lot of property and children suffered the most”.

Mukhaye, who resides in Bulako cell, Bunabwana ward, Bunyinza town council in Manafwa district, had to improvise by creating a trench to direct the straying water out of her semi-permanent mud-riddled house.

“Our gardens would be swept away again and again by running water and what remained behind was always fruitless bare land,” she said.

Mukhaye’s neighbour, Jenipher Kakai, a 52-year-old widow with seven children, resorted to renting land from another village so she could fend for her family.

“My own land was washed away by the floods and, our soils which were usually fertile could produce poor yields,” she painfully recollected: “I had never seen this kind of frustration before”.

Safe and clean water crisis

In the neighbouring district of Namisindwa, the crisis of safe and clean water became a phenomenon, which left so many at risk of contracting waterborne related diseases.

“With our water sources being washed away, streams and rivers which usually carried contaminated water were the only alternative for the residents along with our livestock,” Michael Khauka, stated.

World Bank, government collaborate

Their plight compelled the World Bank to work together with the Ministry of Water and Environment to initiate the Integrated Water Management and Development Project (IWMDP) in Lwakhakha sub-catchment.  

Mount Elgon is a disaster-prone region known for its vulnerability to natural disasters such as landslides, floods, waterlogging, and prolonged drought.

The Project started in 2022, is being implemented in the districts of Manafwa, Namisindwa, and Tororo by a not-for-profit sustainability research, strategy, and implementation organisation AidEnvironment East Africa, and supervised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

From relief to recovery

Led by Khauka, residents acknowledge the project for helping them adapt to climate change impacts such as drought, landslides, flooding, and soil erosion.

“The World Bank and Ministry of Water and Environment interventions have equipped us with disaster risk reduction skills hence mitigating our vulnerability,” Khauka expressed gratitude.

The project focuses on soil and water conservation, gulley restoration, river bank restoration, water source protection, tree growing, and income-generating activities.

For example, through soil and water conservation, landslide survivors are beginning to regain their land and soil fertility as well as experiencing improved water tables at their sources.

Raymond Tumuhaire, AidEnvironment's project manager, noted that rivers in the Elgon region will soon be able to sustain the increased volume of water given the ongoing community-led river bank restoration.

The Scope

To control erosion and siltation, the project aims to rehabilitate a 6.73-kilometer stretch of gullies in the districts of Namisindwa, Manafwa, and Tororo.  

The Government also expects to ensure that up to 72km (36km on either side) of degraded stretches of rivers in Lwakhakha are restored through the project.  

In order to protect water sources across the area, they worked with communities in the sub-catchment to maintain and improve the quality of the local water environment.

Water source protection measures are to facilitate infiltration, control groundwater pollution, reduce siltation, and improve discharge.

Optimistic Government

According to Haggai Ojwang, the water officer at the MWE attached to Kyoga water management zone, the initiative will produce an imminent impact.  

“Some of the activities we are fronting for alternative incoming generation for the affected communities include beekeeping, agroforestry, commercial bamboo farming, and fishing ponds among others.  

“Going forward, we trust this intervention will instill ownership of these community-driven conservation activities into our people in Elgon sub-region, Tororo, and the entire country for us to bolster the country’s effort to combat climate change,” Ojwang said.  

World Bank Visit

Upon his visit recently, Aaron Kabirizi, the World Bank representative lauded the stakeholders implementing the project and the communities across the three districts.

“The measures implemented are tangible and it is good to note that residents themselves are part of the process,” Kabirizi told New Vision Online.

Kabirizi urged for continued quality implementation of the project and the need for the community members to own the interventions beyond the project’s life span which ends in July 2024.