Ley de propiedad intelectual

Makondo Parish was purposively chosen as a single case study, with the knowledge that particular social, political or other contexts are important in understanding the social world (Creswell 2003). Yin (1994) builds on the aspect of context by pointing out that:

Case studies emphasize detailed contextual analysis of a limited number of events or real life conditions or situations that act as a basis for the application of ideas, and are appropriate when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident.

As noted earlier in Chapter One (Section 1.2), there is limited research on the gendered politics of water governance in poor rural communities, and Makondo Parish’s environment was ideal for this study. Geographically, the Parish is found in rural Lwengo District, a new district that was carved out of the former Masaka District in Uganda, a country in East Africa, south of the Sahara (Figure 4.3a). The Parish is located about 64km from Masaka town and 194km from Kampala city, Uganda’s capital. Makondo is one of the four parishes in Ndagwe Sub County, Lwengo District in South Central Uganda, the others being Ndagwe, Mpumudde and Nanywa (Figure 4.3b). The Parish has 15 villages or local council (LC) 1’s, which include Makondo, Michunda, Misaana, Kyamukama, Luyiiyi Kaate, Luyiiyi Potazi, Kiyumbakimu, Kiganjo, Kiteredde, Kayunga, Kibuye, Misenyi, Kijjajjasi, Kanyogoga and Wajjinja (Figure 4.3c).

Figure 4.3a. Map Showing the Location of Uganda on the African Continent (Source: Macri et

al. 2012/WIL)

Makondo Parish has 1,726 households (Field Data 2011) and a population of about 8,193 people,

of which 51.4% are females (UBOS 2006b; Ndagwe Sub County Local Government 2011). The

ethnic groups in the area are the Baganda (the majority), the Banyarwanda, the Banyankole, the Barundi, Tanzanians and a few minorities such Banyoro, many of whom derive their livelihoods from crop and livestock farming and small trading. The major crops grown in the Parish are matooke (plantain bananas), sweet potatoes, beans, maize, groundnuts, sorghum and millet; while cattle, goats and chicken are the major livestock kept. The parish is located in an area that receives two rainy seasons (March-May and September-November) and two dry spells (January- February and June-August), with an annual average rainfall of 950mm per annum (NEMA 2008). Due to climate-change related causes, the seasons and rainfall amounts are changing, and because the parish is located in Ndagwe Sub County, which is partly covered by the natural disaster and drought-prone cattle corridor, it experiences long droughts and erratic rainfall (NEMA 2004; 2008). The cattle corridor covers the western or cattle Ankole sub-region, and districts such as Sembabule, Luweero, Nakaseke, Nakasongola, Mubende, Kiboga, Rakai, and

Lwengo among others, and is also characterised by declining crop and animal productivity due to its fragile environment.

Figure 4.3b. A Map of Makondo and its Neighbouring Parishes (Source: Macri et al. 2012/WIL)

This scenario is partly responsible for the poor access to clean water in the area, with the current safe water coverage standing at 58% in Ndagwe Sub County, which is lower than the 61% coverage for the whole of Lwengo District (Lwengo District Local Government 2011). At the start of this study in January 2011, most of the “improved” water sources in Makondo Parish were not functioning, a fact that we shall establish further in Chapter Five, Section 5.3. Also, there was no piped water in the Parish. Fortunately, about five of the 15 villages in the Parish had electricity, including the Guest House where I resided, although this power was unstable and its high cost made it unaffordable for most of the people in the area. There was one Health Centre in the Parish (situated in Micunda village, see Figure 4.3c) constructed by the Medical Missionaries

of Mary (MMM), under their Community-Based Health Care Programme, but which provided health services to people from the whole of Ndagwe Sub County and beyond.

Figure 4.3c. Map Showing the Location of Makondo Parish within Lwengo District and its

Villages (Source: Macri et al. 2012/WIL)

Thus, Makondo Parish was a suitable study area because of its typical rural setting faced with water scarcity and numerous social challenges in water governance, including gender. Also, the Parish is located in an area that was more accessible, which made it relatively less expensive and more convenient to conduct the study. Thirdly, as described in Section 4.2, this study was both exploratory and explanatory. It was exploratory in the sense that the survey answered the ‘what’, ‘who’ and ‘where’ questions basing on the literature review and the various propositions and theories on gender and rural water governance. The rationale for taking this step is echoed by Yin:

...the simple goal is to have a sufficient blueprint for your study, and this requires theoretical propositions. Then, the complete research design will provide surprisingly strong guidance in determining what data to collect and the strategies for analysing the data. For this reason, theory development prior to the collection of any case study data is an essential step in doing case studies.

(1994:28)

On the other hand, the explanatory nature of this study involved questions of ‘how’ or ‘why’, and these were investigated after the survey in an unmanipulatable contemporary real-life context (Yin 1994:1), as explained in stages II-V in Section 4.2. Makondo Parish therefore had the ‘contemporary phenomena’, such as individual, organisational, social and administrative or political structures and settings at different levels in which the processes under study were presumed to occur (Denzin and Lincoln 1994:202), at least with regard to gender and water governance for a typical rural area.