Abstract
Water is indispensable for human life and sufficient domestic use is considered as a regularity in the western world. The conditions are substantially different in African countries where poverty and lack of life-supporting services prevail. The provision of domestic water is an essential problem, which requires action. Τhe lack of sufficient funding for the development of infrastructure supports claims for citizen participation in related costs. However, can citizens pay and to what extend for sufficient water provision? The present study investigates a household’s willingness to pay for domestic water in the transboundary Mékrou River Basin in West Africa (Burkina Faso, Benin and Niger) and explores the payment for domestic water provision to poverty. The paper uses the results of a household survey that was undertaken in the Mekrou basin including a representative sample from all three countries. Based on this survey the paper presents basic socio-economic characteristics of the local population as well as qualitative water provision and management attributes. In the core of the econometric analysis the paper presents the results of the survey’s Contingent Valuation (CV) scenario estimating the households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a domestic water provision. The households of the Mekrou basin are willing to pay 2.81 euro per month in average for a domestic water provision network but this is strongly related with the wealth of households. This finding although it may support the “user pays principle”, it also raises serious questions over the provision of water to poor households.
Highlights
At the turn of the new Millennium, more than 1 billion people lacked access to any form of sufficient water supply within 1 km of their home [1]. 15 years later, it is estimated that 663 million people still lacked access to safe water and billions remain without sanitation facilities [2]
Any water supply improvement program will only succeed if society desires it, is willing to pay for it in the long run and rewards policymakers for delivering it [5,6]
This study identifies and evaluates proportions and characteristics of the domestic water use in Mékrou River basin, as the economic status of the households has been approximated not exclusively by standard indexes such as income but with the inclusion of water-related standards of living, which can be treated as indirect wealth constraints for water related willingness to pay (WTP) decisions
Summary
At the turn of the new Millennium, more than 1 billion people lacked access to any form of sufficient water supply within 1 km of their home [1]. 15 years later, it is estimated that 663 million people still lacked access to safe water and billions remain without sanitation facilities [2]. At the turn of the new Millennium, more than 1 billion people lacked access to any form of sufficient water supply within 1 km of their home [1]. The provision of reliable, sustained and safe water supply is high on the international and national agendas and in this context, the Millennium Development Goals have included a specific target of reducing by half. Development Goal 6 further enhances the need to increase access to safe and adequate drinking water. As market is continuously extending to cover new shares of life in all countries, regardless the level of development, local residents’ willingness to pay for the necessary water supply investments is a critical decision factor for this kind of projects. The coverage of water costs by the user is the necessary condition for sustainable use [7]
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