| dc.description.abstract | In Nairobi, water vending is an important complement to the City Council's piped water supply
system. The inefficiency and general inability to supply water at cost by the Nairobi City Council
water authorities and service agencies has led to a growing backlog of unserviced consumers.
This paper is based on a study designed to investigate sources or household water, evaluate
factors that determine households' choice of water sources, and the nature of water vending in
Nairobi's Ngando sub-location.
Data for the research was collected from secondary sources, and from surveys of both
small-scale independent water vendors and households in Ng-ando. Random samples of vendors
and households were interviewed using structured questionnaires. The resultant primary data was
analysed using descriptive statistics, and maximum likelihood and ordinary least square estimation
methods.
The study findings ,indicate that Ngando households source water from institutional
supply, vendors, boreholes and wells, with vendors taking C?ver 70% of the market share.
Secondly, maximum likelihood analysis of determinants of household choice of water sources
show that household size and income have significant effects on water source selection
probabilities. Furthermore, education, the volume of water used per day, and the daily cost of
water exert significant impacts on the probabilities of choosing particular water sources. The
direction and magnitude of the impacts of individual attributes on the probabilities of choosing
specific water sources is quite variant. The size of the household, for example, exerts a negative
influence on the probability of choosing vendors as the main source of water but exerts a
positive influence on the probability of choosing boreholes and wells. The impact of education
on the probability of choosing specific water sources is negative with respect to vendors but
positive in the case of boreholes and wells. The third finding is that the poorest households in
Ngando pay the most for water both in absolute amounts and in terms 'of the percentage of
their income spent on water; on average; the water bill constitutes 11% of households monthly
expenditure.
While indicating the importance of water vending to Nairobi's low income residential
suburbs, these results lead to the conclusion that households using greater quantities of water or
who have to travel greater distances in search of water are relatively more likely to use water
from an institutional supply. More generally, the likelihood of choosing alternative water sources
is influenced by the source-specific attributes, such as proximity to the source, human capital
attributes, household's composition, the expenses on water, and the volume of water that is
used. In terms of policy implications, there is need (a) to improve the business environment for
the small-scale private water operators, (b) to encourage private-public sector partnerships in
water supply to engender more competition between the piped water system and the water
vendors; and (c) for Kenya's public authorities (especially the Nairobi City Council and the
Ministry of Local Government) to pay more attention to its regulatory functions (through
appropriate laws, regulations, institutions and incentives) to protect consumers from unsafe
water. | en |
