UGANDA | R. ASWA | WEATHER EXTREMES | HUMAN ACTIVITIES

Agago, in northern Uganda, is a land of weather extremes. When it is not flooding, there is water scarcity.

The River Aswa, which traverses northern Uganda, has become the lifeline of the people. However, unsustainable practices such as charcoal burning are rampant.

There are restoration efforts with high hopes of bringing the River Aswa back to life.

Alice Aciro, 35, a mother of three, survives by tilling the land with a hand hoe at her home in Jerusalem village, Lapano parish, and Lira-Kato sub-county in Agago district, northern Uganda.

Her village shares the name Jerusalem with the holiest city in the Bible. But what takes place in Aciro’s Jerusalem defies the biblical teachings, where people are expected to be stewards of the environment.

As a result of uncontrolled human activity, the village wells and boreholes dry up the moment the dry season settles in Jerusalem.

“It becomes difficult to pump water from a borehole because the water table is low,” Aciro said, adding that the borehole is overworked when there is little water, leading to frequent breakdowns.

“The water keeps on reducing during the dry season until the borehole runs dry.” This means that children and women like Aciro move far out of the home to fetch water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and other domestic chores.

“The women and children get affected the most." "If there is no water, the school-going children miss classes as they must move to the swamp to fetch water,” Aciro said.

The responsibility of fetching water and doing domestic work has been left to the women. “In our culture, it is believed that women are very strong and that it is their responsibility to fetch water,” Aciro said.

Apart from Jerusalem, five other villages in Lapono parish and elsewhere in Agago experience water shortages, according to Aciro.

R. Aswa provides a lifeline

The swamps that provide water throughout the year are part of the River Aswa. This drains an area of 28,000 square kilometers, covering 15 districts in northeastern Uganda. It flows northwest into South Sudan, where it drains into the White Nile.

According to Africa Wetlands, the River Aswa has eight tributaries or sub-catchments, including the River Agago. The river is a key source of water for domestic use, livestock, fish, raw materials for the local handicraft industry, products of the shea nut butter tree, clay, and sand.

SDGS Targets

The scarcity of water in Agago is speaking to one thing: sustainability.

This is captured in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda, which is about ending poverty and leaving no one behind.

There are 17 SDGs, including SDG 6 on safe water and sanitation for all.

Unusual business

Aciro is seen as an agent of change by the Uganda WASH Alliance (WAI Uganda), a consortium of civil society organizations working with regional and local government entities since 2017 to end open defecation and improve access to safe water and sanitation around the River Aswa catchment.

“SDG6 talks about everyone having access to improved water and hygiene services sustainably,” Martin Watsisi, the regional WASH advisor, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre (Uganda), said.

He added that most of the population did not have access to an improved water source and sanitation. Watsisi said an empowered citizenry is the best way to achieve any development agenda and improve lifestyles.

“The actions and inactions of communities as well as the government determine whether people will have access to water and sanitation or not. Civil society organizations will come and go, but communities are here to stay, and the government has the mandate to serve them.

“The WAI alliance focuses their work on advocacy, empowering the communities to demand their WASH rights and, on the other hand, allying with the government to address the people’s concerns,” Watsisi said.

The approach of the WAI alliance pays attention to the inclusion and sustainability of the water sources. The drive to empower communities has had to overcome social barriers. “The people were used to being given,” Watsisi said.

“But the development that is sustainable must have people’s participation rather than merely being recipients or beneficiaries.” This mentality was partly shaped by the war masterminded by rebel leader Joseph Kony, which battered northern Uganda for about two decades.

The Kony war disrupted the socio-economic setup of the communities, with many people living in internally displaced person camps in many areas of the Greater Acholi sub-region, including in Agago.

While water is connected to the environment, the users of water do not pay attention to the conservation of the environment. This is something that is changing.

“When it comes to the environment, there is water scarcity, which is a climate-related crisis and a water management crisis. "That is why integrated water management was considered in our programming,” Watsisi said.

This is being supported by Aid Environment, a partner of Uganda WASH Alliance, which has established a tree nursery and a woodlot in Kamurono.

The tree seedlings at the nursery look similar to soldiers that are ready to be deployed to fight deforestation.

“We have started a reforestation drive and the response from the local community is impressive,” Erick Oceng, Community based facilitator, AidEnvironment, said, adding that they are inter-planting the trees and crops on their land.

Dennis Mugarura, a water sociologist and team leader of the Upper Nile Water Management Zone of the Ministry of Water and Environment, has put in place flood control measures in the Geregere sub-county and demarcated the Unyama wetland in Agago.

Mugarura said they had encouraged communities to form cooperatives, which the Ministry of Water and Environment has supported with alternative livelihood activities such as beekeeping and fish farming.

“People have been cultivating in the wetland to eke a living. Can they leave and use an alternative outside the wetland,” Mugarura said.

“We are working with communities in Lira-Kato, Adilang to protect wetlands and to teach them that wetlands are important when it comes to flood control,” he added.

As a way of replicating good practices, the communities in Agago had a learning experience in the catchment of River Rwizi in Mbarara, western Uganda within the Albert Water Management Zone.

In the River Rwizi catchment, the wise use of the environment is more advanced than in the catchment of River Aswa.

Charcoal burning, bushfire

As one heads in or out of Agago, there are stretches of bags filled with charcoal, a sign that charcoal burning is big business in the area.

While the women and children search for water, the men and youth cut down trees to burn charcoal, an income-generating activity that is threatening to destroy the remaining tree cover in LiraKato and other parts of Agago.

“We have become hard on people cutting trees, particularly the shea nut, which is one of the restricted tree species,” Christopher Angiro, the Agago district environment officer, says.

He says they are rolling out a tree-planting campaign of 1.5 million tree seedlings every year. The semi-arid landscape of Agago is also threatened as the communities set bushfires in anticipation of the advancing rainy season of April-October.

This is done to clear fields cheaply ahead of cultivation and to support the regeneration of fresh pastures that are palatable to cattle.

They also use bushfires in the hunt for a species of cane rat locally known as Anyeli, a delicacy in northern Uganda.

The destructive activities coupled with the changing climate are undermining rain-fed agriculture, according to the district environment officer.

What the leaders say

Jurua Charles, deputy chief administrative officer of Agago, as district officials and communities, we should not lament. We keep shading our eyes, waiting for people from Kampala to provide solutions. Let us help ourselves; there is a lot we can do. We have so many seedlings of trees from the Northern Uganda Social Action Fund (NUSAF), but in most homes, you find no trees planted. We keep crying about climate change, yet we are the ones destroying the environment. We are destroying ourselves. We had a small population, but now we have a big population.

Let us be ambassadors in Agago. We should not keep sleeping. We have gotten a lot of information from the partners; let's go back and implement it.

Emmanuel Oroma, Water officer for Agago

There is only one pump mechanic in the sub-county. We are going to train more hand pump mechanics, and we are targeting three per sub-county.