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Africa's Booming Cities Face Severe Toilet Crisis

   MAKINDYE-LUKULI, UGANDA -- The darkening clouds are ominous for many in
   this urban neighborhood, promising rushing rainwaters stinking of human
   waste from overflowing septic tanks.
   As Africa faces a population boom unmatched anywhere else in the world,
   millions of people are moving to fast-growing cities while decades-old
   public facilities crumble under the pressure.
   Sewage is a scourge for residents of this community on the outskirts of
   Uganda's capital, Kampala. There are no public toilets for 1,200
   people. Mud tinged with feces washes into homes during heavy rains.
   The sanitation crisis echoes that of cities across the developing
   world. Some 2.5 billion people, most of them in Africa or Asia, lack
   access to adequate toilets, U.N. figures show. Governments are
   increasingly depending on private businesses and philanthropic groups
   to help manage human waste in cities that were never planned to handle
   so many people.
   One of the fastest-growing cities in the world, Kampala is home to at
   least 1.5 million people, but authorities say over 3 millionpassthrough
   daily, usually for work. Yet there are fewer than 800 pay toilets and
   only 14 free ones, many of them dilapidated with walls often smeared
   with feces.

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