Review of the District Implementation Manual (DIM) : summary of key issues

The Ministry of Water and Environment produced the District Implementation Manual (DIM) in 2007 to support and guide sector stakeholders in the implementation of water and sanitation activities. The DIM provides guidelines for sector stakeholders operating at district level, including district local governments and NGOs. The DIM sets out the policy and institutional environment as well as sector stakeholder's roles in line with the SWAP and the sector approaches for harmonized strategies.

Though the DIM was meant to contribute to the improvement of sector performance, five years on, the WASH sector still faces challenges in standardisation, harmonisation and coordination of rural water service delivery. The WASH sector has not realized significant positive changes in rural water service delivery. A key challenge hindering progress towards the desired goals stems from ineffective coordination and harmonisation of actors and interventions as well as the inadequate enforcement of policies and guidelines.

In March 2011, the Triple‐S initiative of IRC in Uganda undertook to assess the utilisation of the DIM. The purpose of the study was to assess the application and effectiveness of DIM and make recommendations for improvement of the process and quality of implementation of the DIM strategies and approach.