Richard Franceys

Who really pays? A critical overview of the practicalities of funding universal access

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 (‘th...

Revisiting the history, concepts and typologies of community management for rural drinking water supply in India

Abstract Community management has been widely criticized, yet it continues to play a significant role in rural drinking water supply. In India, as with other ‘emerging’ economies, the management model must now adapt to meet the policy demand for ever-increasing technical sophistication. Given this context, the paper reviews the history and concepts of community management to propose three typologies that better account for the changing role of the community and external support entities found in successful cases. It argues that external support entities must be prepared to take greater responsibility for providing ongoing support to communities for ensuring continuous service delivery.

Paying for water — urban water tariffs

PEOPLE NEED WATER for life. Water utilities need money to construct, operate and maintain abstraction, treatment and distribution facilities. These two statements suggest that although on one hand water is a basic need for which nobody should have to pay and which should be available by right, on the other the water utility has to do a job which is similar to a bottled-soft-drink producer but on a much larger scaleand nobody suggests that the softdrinks producer should give their products away free of charge. Some people believe that water is a free gift for all in the same way that air is free; others feel that the cost of providing clean water for the benefit of poor people should be subsidized by the richer people through the government but that the poorest should pay something towards the cost in order to understand the value of clean water.

Charging to enter the water shop

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.

What hope for the transition? Evaluating pro-poor water supply interventions in urban low-income settlements in Kenya

A multitude of pro-poor water supply interventions are continually piloted in Kenya’s fast-growing urban settlements to meet national and global Millennium Development Goal targets, yet problems persist, regardless of the investments made. An evaluation is reported of four interventions by public utilities and non-governmental organizations in the low-income settlements of Nairobi, Kisumu and Nakuru, comprising: three ‘distribution’ interventions (‘Social Connections’; ‘WaterChoices Kiosks’; Prepaid Meters) and one ‘supply’ intervention (independently supplied boreholes), through 1,168 household surveys, records analysis, and key informant interviews. The results showed that price reduction (most evident with the prepaid meters) and accessibility is critical for customer satisfaction, with limited sustainability of all the interventions being the confounding factor. Despite showing few positive benefits (apart from the over-riding benefit of availability), 81 per cent of the consumers of borehole water co...

Using private operators in small town water supplies, Uganda

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.

Private sector participation in water supply and sanitation

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.

The Structure and Performance of Urban Water Utilities

There are growing differences between countries and within countries with regard to the organisational structure of urban water supply systems, the role played by governments within these systems, and the resulting systems performance. This chapter begins by providing an overview of the basic organisational arrangements for delivering urban water, including the respective roles of the public and private sectors, and then explores the different features of sector performance. It then seeks to offer readers an understanding of how the urban water supply systems have operated in the case study countries and what these systems have achieved. Monitoring performance was not a principal aim of the study. Consequently no primary data on performance were collected. Instead researchers relied upon existing data sources. Occasionally this created problems in terms of the reliability or comparability of data. Both the performance of the sector as a whole and the performance of government within the sector are discussed here.

The Challenge of the Concession Model

The objective of a public private partnership (PPP) is to transfer responsibility for the direct provision of urban water supply to the private sector, recognising that it is usually not necessary to have civil servants operating pumps and reading meters. From the range of PPPs described in Chapter 4, the presumed ideal has been the comprehensive concession model, which achieves the benefits of divestiture without incurring the social cost of transferring state-owned assets to private ownership. The term ‘concession’ in the urban water sector therefore is generally used to describe a city-wide contract with a private operator for the commercial management of abstraction, treatment, distribution and sale of water, including the financing and construction of new assets where required. Many variations are possible (for example, where government agencies continue to supply bulk water or where water supply is combined with sewerage responsibilities). In some cities, the geographical area is split between two concessionaires to promote comparative competition or to provide security in case of contract failure.

Addressing the Water Needs of the Urban Poor

The historical justification for public sector involvement in the ‘private good’ supply of water has been to ensure public health benefits, particularly for the poorest. This was based on the assumption that the private sector would be uninterested in serving those who are less able to pay. However, the public water and sanitation sector in low and middle-income countries is failing to meet the needs of the urban poor. The figures for service coverage, the main indicator of reasonable access to this basic need, show an increase of 50 per cent over the past decade in those not served with urban water supply (WHO 2000). Very often, the public sector has failed to achieve the goal of public health provision for the poor and has ended up subsidising the convenience interests of the rich.