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Sanitation for rural housing in Sri Lanka
01.01.1987
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Paying for water — urban water tariffs
01.07.1990
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Private sector participation in water supply and sanitation
01.01.2003
Governments around the world are trying public-private partnerships where their own provision of water and sanitation services has proven inadequate. This article describes a number of different forms these partnerships can take. -
Using private operators in small town water supplies, Uganda
01.01.2003
Private operators have been managing the water supply of 23 small towns in Uganda for approximately 18 months. This article finds out whether water users – including the poor – have benefited, and whether the system is likely to be sustainable. -
Charging to enter the water shop?
01.10.2005
Poor town dwellers are discouraged from obtaining a piped water supply by unaffordable connection charges. This is in spite of the savings in time and money they may make once connected. This article compares actual costs incurred in obtaining a connection, and suggests ways to make these charges affordable to the poor. -
Assessing the costs and consumer behaviour of increasing water connections in low-income areas of Maputo, Mozambique
01.10.2018
Águas da Região de Maputo, the water utility serving the capital of Mozambique, has carried out water network expansion projects in peri-urban areas in partnership with the not-for-profit company Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor. This research analyses data from 10 low-income neighbourhoods (bairros) which received network extensions between 2009 and 2014 enabling the propagation of individual domestic water connections. Data from the water utility and 900 household questionnaires undertaken in 2012 and 2017 is used to assess the financial costs and resulting customer behaviour of increasing coverage to the poor. The analysis shows a 78 per cent increase in customers in those neighbourhoods between 2010 and 2016, with the new customers paying a reduced connection fee of 2,000 MZN ($77). The cost of the distribution network extension to the utility is estimated as USD$48.50 per household (2017 prices). The resulting average monthly billed consumption was 9.29 m3 in 2016, corresponding to average monthly bills of 304 MZN ($4.85). The outcomes were positive and encouraging with 83 per cent of households reporting having a water connection, although 32 per cent of customers were consuming below the minimum monthly billed consumption of 5 m3. Bill collection efficiency increased from 50 per cent in 2009 to 80 per cent in 2016 in the newly served low-income areas. -
Who really pays? A critical overview of the practicalities of funding universal access
01.01.2016
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include targets to achieve universal access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) within the next 15 years (2015–30). To be sustainable, this requires the long-term funding of efficient operating costs, capital maintenance costs, and any costs of capital. It is recognized that this can only be done through a combination of user charges, national taxes, and international transfers. This paper describes the main permutations in present user charges and subsidies, and reports on the ways in which each helps or hinders access by the poor to both rural and urban WASH services. An overview, based on programme experience, academic and grey literature, indicates that it is possible to accelerate the provision of clean water, basic sanitation, and improved hygiene practices ahead of the socio-economic (effective demand) trend line but only with very significant direct and indirect subsidies; direct to consumers and indirect to the supporting institutions or entities (‘the enabling environment’). We conclude that, in the near term at least, it is likely that transfers will have to be acknowledged as a more prominent source of funding for recurrent costs, specifically capital maintenance charges, than donors would prefer. If supporting ongoing services for all, in rural areas or low-income urban settlements, with the necessary level of ongoing subsidies (transfers) is unaffordable for global society, most likely by default, then focusing upon subsidizing the poorest and most marginalized in the long term is the ‘least bad’ alternative approach – but this approach cannot be expected to deliver genuine SDGs.