Implementing water safety plans: experiences from Uganda

The Quality Control Department (QCD) of National Water and Sewerage Cooperation (NWSC) is responsible for process and water quality monitoring in 15 urban centres in Uganda, East Africa. Since 2002, NWSC has been working with the Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC), UK on a research project entitled “Risk Assessment and Management of piped urban water supply” (Contract DFID KaR R8029). The research explored the development of a new approach to controlling water quality in piped water systems termed Water Safety Plans (WSPs). WSPs are based on the principles of Hazard Assessment and Critical Control Point (HACCP) used in the food industry and were recently codified in the 3rd edition of the World Health Organisation (WHO) global Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality (GDWQ). NWSC is the first water utility in the developing world to implement WSPs. This paper is the fourth in a series, paper one entitled “Improving risk assessment and management in urban water supplies” was presented at the 28th WEDC Conference, paper two and three entitled “Static risk mapping using a Geographic Information system” and “System assessment to develop water safety plans” was presented at the 29th WEDC Conference. This paper discusses the experiences of NWSC in implementing the new approach in two of its urban centres, and presents lessons learnt during the process.