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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Water
Sec. Water and Human Systems
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frwa.2025.1544779
Interlinkages and Indicators: Novel Assessment of Water, Sanitation and Solid Waste Services in Schools in two Ugandan Towns
Provisionally accepted
Charlotte Farine 1,2*
Christoph Lüthi 1
Charles Buregeya Niwagaba 3
Eberhard Morgenroth 1,2
Abishek S Narayan 1*- 1 Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland
- 2 ETH Zürich, Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland
- 3 Makerere University, Kampala, Central Region, Uganda
The status of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) in schools in sub-Saharan Africa remains dire. Only 46% have access to basic water services, 44% to basic sanitation services, and 26% to basic hygienic services. Although integrating these services with other water and waste streams could benefit service provision, a systematic methodology for such integration does not exist yet. This research proposes the first step-a methodology for an integrated assessment of water, sanitation, and solid waste management (SWM) services in schools. In addition, a modified version of the Joint Monitoring Program's WASH service ladder for schools is provided for a detailed understanding of the service levels. 16 schools from two small towns in Uganda are taken as case studies to identify the current service levels, interlinkages between the sectors as well as their enabling environment. Using surveys, stakeholder interviews, observations, and water quality measurements, the results show several crosscontamination pathways leading to exposure of pupils to pathogens. Finance and policies are major inhibitors of positive interlinkages and limited skills and capacities amplify negative interlinkages. The results emphasize the need for a shift towards further integrated planning of the water and waste services in schools and other institutions.
Keywords: Schools, Uganda, Water, Sanitation, Solid Waste, integration, JMP
Received: 13 Dec 2024; Accepted: 03 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Farine, Lüthi, Niwagaba, Morgenroth and Narayan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Charlotte Farine, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland
Abishek S Narayan, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland
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