A GIS Evaluation for Accessibility to Wash Facilities in Mantapala Refugee Settlement

The paper sets to address the challenges of planning, implementing and monitoring of Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) interventions in Mantapala Refugee Settlement (MRS) through combination of the paper-based method and geographical information systems (GIS). This method was used to assess the accessibility of WASH services by monitoring the interaction with other infrastructure such as the distance between water points and households. To incorporate spatial, qualitative and quantitative concepts, the research adopted the socio-spatial grounded theory and a non-experimental design specifically a cross-sectional study. The study identified 51 water points which translated to providing 31.88 litres per person per day (l/p/d) of clean water, with 75.69% of households covering less than 200 meters to fetch water. 21.88% of the households had decent latrines, 70.71% had permanent substructures and 7.41% had no latrines. 62 households walked less than 50 meters to the constructed refuse bays out of 3,574 households. The study concluded that organizations should consider employing this approach because decisions can be made with adequate information, leading to the optimization of scarce resources. Additional features such as contours made it possible to identify and avoid constructing dump sites/landfills along the flood-prone areas as well as a basis for designing drainage networks and solid waste management plans.