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planning of towns in consultation with the Town and Country
Planning Board. As this legislation is largely ignored, many of
the city’s housing projects do not adhere to the guidelines for
the building of new residential and commercial buildings.
As a result of inadequate city planning, the poor construct their
homes in underserviced areas with no road network, water
extension and sewage reticulation services. The inadequate
planning is worsened by lack of coordination between Kampala
City Council and infrastructure service providers such as
NWSC and Uganda Electricity Distribution Company on
matters of planning.
CLOGGED DRAINAGE
Kampala is facing increasing water drainage problems caused
by the destruction of flood buffer zones such as wetlands,
most of which have become slum settlements or croplands.
A study by Byandala (2004) attributed Kampala’s drainage
problems to:
• The destruction of the upstream buffer zones that has
reduced the runoff concentration time and increased the risk
of flooding downstream; and
• The clogging of artificial drainage systems with debris and
garbage, causing flooding in the lower areas of Kampala
where the poor are settled in informal settlements on the
low-lying wetlands. The African Development Bank (2006)
estimated that as much as 70 per cent of Kampala’s urban
poor live in informal settlements.
ECOSYSTEM HEALTH
In order to eke out a living, the poor residents of Kampala
depend on firewood and charcoal for energy, while at the same
time engage in urban agriculture. In addition to the conversion
of wetlands into barren patches for monoculture agricultural
crops, deforestation is rampant in the city. In response to this
encroachment of the urban environment, the Kampala City
Council has embarked on a drainage improvement programme
inwhich they have cleared andwidened drainage channels. Policy
responses include the National Wetlands Policy (1995), which
promotes the conservation of Uganda’s wetlands. Regulations
are equally in place for the protection of river banks and lake
shores. Despite the establishment of the Wetlands Inspection
Division to enforce the above policies and regulations and to
oversee the sustainable management of wetlands in the country,
there has been little compliance with these measures.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION
The raw water supply on which the poor residents of Kampala
rely, are polluted from many sources, including industry and
households. One such polluted source is Lake Victoria, a
key water source for Kampala. According to MacDonald and
others (2001), urban municipal loads account for 77 per cent
Due to their exposure to a polluted environment, as well
as their reliance on water from unsafe sources, the poor
residents of Kampala are vulnerable to many diseases.
Cholera and other water-borne diseases are a common
occurrence in the slum dwellings of Kampala. Dysentery
has been on the increase, not only in Kampala but the
rest of the country, registering a fourfold increase in the
number of reported cases between 1999 and 2002. The
number of patients suffering from persistent diarrhoea
reported at Mulago Hospital alone increased by 32 per
cent in a three-year period up to 2003, with most of the
reported cases coming from Banda, Makerere-Kivulu,
Kamwokya and other slums of Kampala (NEMA 2003).
Human Health Hazard