Independent water and sanitation providers in African cities : full report of a ten-country study

This ten-country study covers: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Uganda, Senegal, and Tanzania. In each of these countries, local private consultants (with methodological support from Hydroconseil and IRC) gathered information about independent water and sanitation operators and brought them into contact with one another, in order to increase knowledge and understanding of their roles and needs. This report consolidates the results of the ten country studies and seeks to answer the big questions about independent water and sanitation providers: a. How do they provide water service in areas where city water authorities and concessionaires hesitate to invest? b. How important are the services they supply - how many households do they serve, how many people do they employ, and what is the volume of their business? c. How do they finance their investments in an infrastructure-intensive sector of business? d. What kinds of relationships do they have with local authorities and with large water producers, both public and private? and, e. What are their main advantages, what obstacles do they face in seeking to expand their activities or improve the quality of service, and what policies would be likely to improve their services and benefit the low-income urban consumers they serve?