german cooperation

the german development cooperation is complicated in itself, as we have 5 organisations (kfw - for financing, GTZ- for technical cooperation, CIM and DED- for human resources, and InWent - for training. and the clear goal is that all organisations work hand in hand, in a multilevelapproach. which is called EZ1aG - development cooperation in 1 mould. This is sometimes not so easy as it sounds, especially for the DED, as we have almost no financial backup and working on micro-meso level also gives us often not a big standing towards the big Kfw and GTZ. but however, we are at least doing the visible projects on the ground, such as my ecosan -toilets ;)
Furthermore in a sector wide approach with the other donors, the germans focus on urban areas and on the northern areas. pro-poor.

so last week a german-ugandan team were on a mission to the WestNile, to see the situation on the ground and evaluate where the german intervention could go in the future. with millions by kFW. for the colleagues, based in kampala, reading and writing papers and doing strategic work with the ministry but not beeing in the area before, it was a good trip to see and know at least now what they are talking about.
for me , as i travel the region frequently, it was a good presentation of our activities. but i am always and still shocked by the poor conditions in the region.
we have been to Koboko, a town with 48.000 inhabitants, (which in ugandan context is already medium town size) , where they have no piped water! they have to fetch water from a non clean stream, and for the few boreholes the household pay 1000 USH /month = 40 cents and is limited to 4 jerrycans a day. the price sounds not a lot, but its 2-4 times the price in other towns. and the 100 l is little for a family of average 8 people. despite there s a lack of latrines, or pit latrines that even pollute the precious groundwater furtheron, and waste collection is a mess. so no suprise there is frequent cholera and other sanitation borne diseases.

so, i hope now, that the german ministry decides to help that town directly and hopefully also soon. and is not influenced by political strategies and dc-tendencies (basket funding, and climate change)