The 2024 Uganda Water Accounts provide a comprehensive, physical and economic assessment of water supply, use, abstraction, and productivity across the economy, aligned with the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) framework. This systematic dataset links water resources with economic activities, facilitating integrated planning for water sustainability and socioeconomic development.
Total water abstraction declined slightly by 0.8% to 499,039 million m³ compared to 2023, indicating emerging constraints in raw water availability. Total water consumption increased by 1.2% to 37,957 million m³, suggesting growing intensity of water use in key sectors. Agriculture remains dominant, responsible for 55.4% of total water abstraction and consumption; within this, rain-fed agriculture and livestock use account for most water use, while irrigation demand slightly declined. Industrial water use dipped overall (-3.1%), excluding substantial expansion in water-intensive mining and crude oil extraction (over 100% growth), highlighting diverse industrial water needs. Water use efficiency (WUE) declined marginally by 0.8%, signaling that economic growth was outpacing gains in efficiency, especially in water-intensive sectors. Annual water use per capita decreased to about 10,869 litres, and average household water use declined slightly (to about 45.5 litres per day), reflecting modest improvements in water conservation.
The Water Accounts data provide actionable insights for national planning, particularly for resource allocation, policy design, investment prioritization, and performance monitoring across the water value chain, such as:
1. Accelerate Water Use Efficiency and Productivity Gains: Target sectoral efficiency improvements in agriculture (e.g., irrigation technology, soil moisture management) to sustainably support food systems and reduce water stress. support industrial sectors to adopt water recycling, closed loop systems, and cleaner production technologies, especially in water-intensive sub-sectors such as mining and crude oil industries;
2. Expand Investment in Water Supply and Sanitation: Align budget allocations with patterns of use and stress identified in the accounts; scale investments in piped water infrastructure, rural water systems, and wastewater treatment. Factor in urbanization trends and peri-urban water demand growth, as seen in water supply dependency shifts;
3. Improve Household and Community Water Services: Enhance programming on household access, reliability, and quality of service, with special emphasis on underserved rural regions where water access remains limited. Coupling Water Accounts insights with national census findings (e.g., 81% access to improved water sources) helps define targeted interventions to reach universal access.
For more insights, please visit the link below:
https://www.ubos.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/The-2024-Uganda-Water-Accounts-November-2025.pdf