Tracking district budgeting and expenditure on rural water services in Uganda

This paper presents findings from a budget and expenditure tracking study conducted by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre on rural water services in Uganda. The purpose of the study was to get a better understanding of the financial flows, the district budget and expenditure on different rural water activities. Data was collected on allocations and expenditures of districts and NGOs on rural water supply activities over a period of 4 years. The study shows that there is a big imbalance in allocation of budgets and expenditure on different WASH cost categories with investment in new water supply systems taking upto 90% of the annual budgets while the recurrent costs; direct support and capital maintenance expenditure share only 10% or less. There is evidence that this imbalance hinders maintenance of rural water services and compromises the level of service received by users.