Small towns across Uganda continue to face growing challenges in managing water supply, sanitation and solid waste services. While these sectors are closely interconnected, they are often planned and implemented separately, leading to service gaps, environmental contamination and inefficient use of limited resources. A new study by researchers from Makerere University and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) proposes a practical solution: an Integrated Planning Framework (IPF) designed to help local governments coordinate these essential services through a unified planning process.
The framework is presented in the recently published article,“Breaking Sectoral Silos: An Integrated Planning Framework for Water, Sanitation and Solid Waste in Small Towns in Uganda,” authored by Ronald Sakaya, Christoph Lüthi, Abishek Sankara Narayan and Charles B. Niwagaba. The study draws on four years of research conducted in KakoogeTown Council and Wobulenzi Town Council, focusing on how integrated service delivery can improve urban environmental health and governance in resource-constrained settings.
Addressing the Challenge of Fragmented Service Delivery
According to the researchers, water supply, sanitation and solid waste management are physically and institutionally interconnected. Failures in one sector can negatively affect the others. For example, poor waste collection can block drainage channels, while inadequate sanitation facilities can contaminate groundwater sources used for domestic water supply. Despite these interdependencies, planning and investment decisions are commonly made within separate sectoral structures.
The study identifies fragmentation of governance, unequal resource allocation and limited coordination among institutions as major barriers to effective service delivery in small towns. Existing planning tools tend to focus on individual sectors, leaving local authorities without a practical framework for developing integrated solutions.
A Five Phase Integrated Planning Framework
To bridge this gap, the research team developed the Integrated Planning Framework (IPF), a five-phase methodology aimed at promoting coordinated planning and implementation across the three sectors. The framework combines systems thinking, stakeholder participation and incremental implementation approaches suited to the realities of small towns.
The five phases include:
- Enabling Environment Assessment to understand institutional, political and financial barriers.
- Integrated Baseline Assessment to establish a shared evidence base on service coverage and sector interlinkages.
- Road Mapping and Solution Profiling to identify and prioritize integrated interventions.
- Modular and Coordinated Planning to develop practical and fundable projects.
- Implementation and Adaptive Management to support continuous learning and improvement.
The framework was tested and validated in Kakooge and Wobulenzi, where local stakeholders worked together to assess service gaps, identify priority actions and develop coordinated implementation strategies.
Generating Evidence for Integrated Solutions
A key innovation of the IPF is the Integrated Baseline Assessment (IBA), which combines data collection on water, sanitation and solid waste management into a single process. Through household surveys, infrastructure mapping, water quality testing and waste characterization studies, the assessment helps identify areas where service failures overlap and create public health risks.
In Kakooge Town Council, the assessment revealed contamination hotspots where groundwater pollution, flooding and informal waste dumping coincided. The findings provided local leaders with evidence needed to prioritize interventions and strengthen collaboration among service providers.
From Technical Plans to Collective Action
The researchers highlight the importance of creating platforms that bring together key actors from government, utilities, community groups, private sector operators and development partners. Through a Planning Coordination Committee, stakeholders were able to jointly review evidence, agree on priorities and develop a shared roadmap for action. Rather than producing large and often unfunded master plans, the IPF promotes modular projects that can be implemented progressively as resources become available. Examples include scheduled faecal sludge emptying services, ward-level waste collection systems and groundwater protection measures. This approach allows towns to achieve early successes while maintaining a long-term vision for integrated service delivery.
Lessons for Uganda and Beyond
The study concludes that the challenges facing small towns are not primarily due to a lack of technical solutions, but rather to fragmented governance and limited collective action. The researchers found that integrated planning can help municipalities align investments, strengthen accountability and improve environmental and public health outcomes.
According to the authors, three major lessons emerged from the research: the need to rethink governance structures, the value of collaborative evidence-building, and the importance of phased implementation that matches local capacities and resources. Together, these elements provide a pathway for moving beyond sectoral silos toward more resilient and sustainable urban service systems
The Integrated Planning Framework offers a practical blueprint for local governments, policymakers and development partners seeking to improve access to safe water, sanitation and waste management services in Uganda’s rapidly growing small towns