Adoption or Adaptation? Prepayment Technology and Water Services for the Urban Poor in Uganda.

Utilization of technological innovations impacts on societal relationships and consequently influences social change and social interaction including the way people communicate, do business and access services. Government of Uganda, through the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) operationalized the pro-poor strategy of 2006, by among others, introducing prepayment technology (PPMs) in urban poor settings of Kampala. Between 2008 and 2013, a total of 1413 communal prepaid water dispensers fitted with prepaid metering technology were installed in selected informal settlements and over 32,000 tokens were issued out to users as accessories. Despite this, average per capita water consumption on these prepaid meters a paltry 13 litres per day. This water use is still below the Uganda national standard of per capita consumption of at least of 20 litres as stipulated in the Uganda National Water Policy of 1999. What is puzzling is whether users have adopted the prepayment technology or found means of circumnavigating the technology in what is seen as an adaptation mechanism.

A mixed methods design consisting of probability and non-probability sampling procedures was adopted. The results showed that slightly half of the 375 respondents (59%) had ever used PPM technology to access piped water. The sample T-tests revealed a significant mean difference in the cost of a 20-litre jerrican at PPM tap and other water sources (p<0.01). The key challenge respondents noted was the long period of non-functionality of PPMs that is continually eroding all the significant gains made. Utilization of technological innovations such as the PPM is an outcome of complex processes involving interdependent factors such as technology characteristics and occurring at varying levels of time and space. For instance, users, as actors with agency, socially construct meanings out of technologies which then affects how they react.