Harar town is undergoing a major water crisis. The steady decrease of the level of Lake Alemaya has resulted in the complete closure of the treatment plant. Due to supply shortfall water vendors sell untreated water with extremely high prices. The urban poor, for the sake of survival, is obliged to buy water of low quality with high prices.

Apart from its low level of coverage, the sanitation problem of Harar town is further aggravated by the absence of water supply. There is only one vacuum truck that is used for emptying septic tanks and pit latrines. In the congested areas with very narrow streets of Jegol it is practically impossible to use even the vacuum truck for emptying the pit latrines. There is no treatment plant for wastewater and the wastewater collected from septic tanks and pit latrines is disposed simply on open space.

Programme goal

The goal of the program is to contribute towards the improvement of the living conditions of the urban poor by providing a foundation to address some of the critical areas of the urban water and sanitation challenges through direct impact demonstration activities in parallel with focused capacity building interventions.


Programme Objectives

The following four objectives of the program are specified:

• To introduce pro-poor governance and follow-up investment and to provide efficient sanitation services to the urban poor
  
• To introduce and implement Water Demand Management (WDM) and Urban Catchments Management (UCM) strategies and programs
  
• To strengthen the capacity of the main implementing institutions and to internalize the process within the institutions’ structure
  
• To build the capacity of the stakeholders through water education program, advocacy, awareness raising and information exchange strategy.

Planned Activities

Conduct situational analysis and develop baseline data in the areas of:

• socio-economic conditions of the city
  
• water supply & sanitation situation
  
• water demand and related issues
  
• urban catchment management
  
• Review existing policies, strategies, programs, laws and regulations pertaining to the thematic priorities of the program
  
• Develop policy gaps and assist in the development region based policies in relation to the objectives of the programme