User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Uganda

Public toilets in Uganda are few in number, matching a general national issue of lack of general access to toilets and proper sanitation and WaterAid saying in 2016 that the country was in the top ten for having the least number of safe and private toilets in urban areas.. The capital of Uganda, Kampala, has seen very few new public toilets constructed with less than 20 in a city of over 1.5 million people.

Public toilets
A 2021 study found there was one public toilet per 100,000 people. The quality of public toilets is very low, with most being dirty or poorly maintained. Some entrepreneurs in Uganda are building toilets for use by the public, offering a single daily free for multiple use of their facilities by an entire family.

The average daily water usage per person between 1998-2002 was less than 50 liters a day. This limited the ability to use flush toilet systems in public toilets. It cost around USD$0.03-0.1 to use a public toilet in 2007.

Pit latrine vaults in school toilets and public toilets in Uganda during the 2000s and 2010s had issues in that they were frequently full. This resulted in poor performance of these facilities. Building new facilities was also problematic as the need to empty pit latrines created a difficult maintenance issue.

On a per capita basis, WaterAid said in 2016 that the country was in the top ten for having the least number of safe and private toilets in urban areas. Cholera and other waterborne illness were a major problem in Uganda in the late 2010s as a result of inadequate sewage disposal and treatment. Uganda experienced around USD$177 million in economic losses per year in 2012 as a result of poor sanitation, and the follow on effects including lost productivity and poor health. Fecal waste from improperly built septic systems in Uganda has leaked into Lake Victoria and into other waterways and swamps in the country. World Bank said in 2012 that Uganda needed to install around 650,000 toilets to provide enough toilet facilities so people would not need to resort to public defecation. The African Development Bank was trying to end flying toilets, locally called kaverra, in 2015. Lack of access to adequate sanitation in the 2000s and 2010s left women particularly vulnerable to gender violence.

Kampala
Kampala was one of the fastest growing cities in the world in the late 2010s, with a population over 1.5 million and an additional 1.5 million people making their way to or through the city on a daily basis. Over 3 million people lived in the area of Kampala  in 2018. Only 10% of Kampala had a sewage connection in 2019. Less than 50% of the sewage waste in the city reached a waste treatment facility.

Women in Kampala believed that it was shameful to be seen using a toilet, especially during menstruation. The shame among women was so great that many women could not even discuss the topic among themselves. At the same time, the act of defecating into a bucket or a plastic bag was also viewed as a humiliating act. Many women in Kampala lacked menstruation supplies like changing pads or period cloth. At the same time, many women also lacked privacy to deal with menstruation related hygiene.

There were no public toilets constructed in Kampala during the 2010s. In 2018, there were less than twenty public toilets in Kampala. In 2019, Kampala only had fourteen free public toilets and less than 800 pay public toilets. Many of the free toilets were in poor condition, with the walls covered in feces. On the outskirts of Kampala, some communities had no public toilets in 2019. When there was heavy rain, sewage on the street would sometimes wash into people's homes. While some public toilets were very cheap in Kampala in 2019, they were still too expensive for many of the city's very poorest residents. A plan was announced in 2019 to install 200 public toilets by 2025, with funding from the project coming from foreign donors like German development agency GIZ.

Malls in Kampala are a popular place for people to use the toilet. Most of the toilets in semi-public areas of Kampala were locked in 2018 to prevent people from using them without permission. Government offices in Kampala often locked the doors of their toilets to try to keep people on the street from trying to use them.

Entrepreneur Joel Ssimbwa founded two facilities in 2016 in Kampala that attempted to provide affordable toilet options. He created the business after identifying a need in the city for more options for people to relieve themselves. He charged Shs300 per time to use the toilets.

A politician was photographed urinating against a wall of the Ministry of Finance building in Kampala in September 2007. As a result, he was charged and fined for that offense. He had tried to plead innocent, claiming that there were no public toilets nearby.

Regional and global situation impacting public toilets in Uganda
Around 2.5 billion people around the world in 2018 did not have access to adequate toilet facilities. Around 4.5 billion people lacked access to proper sanitation. Public toilet access around the world is most acute in the Global South, with around 3.6 billion people, 40% of the world's total population, lacking access to any toilet facilities. 2.3 people in the the Global South do not have toilet facilities in their residence. Despite the fact that the United Nation made a declaration in 2010 that clean water and sanitation is a human right, little has been done in many places towards addressing this on a wider level.

Public toilets, depending on their design, can be tools of social exclusion. Across Africa, open defecation had social consequences. These included loss of dignity and privacy. It also put women at risk of sexual violence. The lack of single-sex women's toilets in developing countries makes it harder for women to participate in public life, in education and in the workplace.

An issue in developing countries is toilet access in schools. Only 46% of schools in developing countries have them. Many schools around the world in 2018 did not have toilets, with the problem particularly acute in parts of Africa and Asia. Only one in five primary schools on earth had a toilet and only one in eight secondary schools had public toilets. 344 million children in sub-Saharan Africa did not have a toilet in their home in 2018. The lack of toilet access put these children at risk of water borne diseases.

There are generally two toilet styles in public bathrooms in Africa. One is a traditional squat toilet. The other is a western style toilet with bowl and a place to sit.