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Universal (Non)service? Water Markets, Household Demand and the Poor in Urban Kenya

Department of Urban Planning, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA, sumila.gulyani{at}columbia.edu

Debabrata Talukdar

School of Management, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA, dtalukda{at}buffalo.edu

R. Mukami Kariuki

Water and Energy Department, The World Bank, NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA, rkariuki{at}worldbank.org

Compared with the non-poor, just how inadequately are the urban poor served by the public utilities and private water providers? Based on a survey of 674 households, this paper examines current water use and unit costs in three Kenyan towns and also tests the willingness of the unconnected to pay for piped water or improved kiosk service. By examining the water use behaviour of poor and non-poor households, this study brings into question a long-standing notion in the literature-that only the poor are underserved, use little water and pay a lot for it. It also indicates that the standard prescription to 'price water and create water markets' is in itself insufficient to improve service delivery and that kiosks are not always a good solution for serving the poor.

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