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

The traumatising experience is still fresh in Mukhaye’s mind as she continues to narrate her ordeal: “I lost a lot of property and my 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 and wattle 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 land was washed away by the floods and our soils, which were usually fertile, could produce poor yields,” she says. “I had never seen this kind of frustration before.” 

Safe, clean water crisis 

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

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

World Bank, govt collaborate 

Their plight has 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, which 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 Aid Environment East Africa, supervised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The scope 

To control erosion and siltation, the project is aiming at rehabilitating a 6.73km stretch of gullies in the districts of Namisindwa, Manafwa, and Tororo. 

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

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 

Haggai Ojwang, the water officer at the water ministry attached to Kyoga Water Management Zone, says the initiative will have an imminent impact. 

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

“Going forward, we trust this intervention will instill ownership of these community-driven conservation activities in our people in the Elgon sub-region, Tororo, and the entire country for us to bolster Uganda’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. 

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

From relief to recovery

Led by Michael 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 water ministry interventions have equipped us with disaster risk reduction skills, hence mitigating our vulnerability,” Khauka says. 

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 and experiencing improved water tables at their sources. 

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