The Limits and Possibilities of Prepaid Water in Urban Africa: Lessons from the Field, 2014.
Authors: Chris Heymans, Kathy Eales and Richard Franceys. Water and Sanitation Program.
This study explores the potential of prepaid meters for serving urban poor communities. It provides urban utilities, oversight agencies, and other stakeholders in Africa with a basis for decision-making on the suitability, introduction, and management of such meters. The need for the assessment emerged from prepaid meters.
Of the three applications, prepaid public standpipes seem most likely to enable water utilities to serve poor households better and offset investment and running costs. This capability is contingent on a distribution network with adequate pressure, the existence of convenient credit purchase points, and a strong customer service component to address faults promptly.
This report identifies and discusses key areas in which policy reform, improved regulation, and innovative operational practice could help make the use of prepaid water systems conducive to serving poor people. Key suggestions about the way forward include:
Be clear about the priority: Reaching people without their own connections. Prepaid systems’ core potential is in addressing the fact that many urban Africans still do not have their own water connections and remain outside the reach of subsidy regimes. Prepayment does not offer an obvious answer to these challenges, but some of these systems’ attributes may provide a tool for addressing them in certain circumstances.
