The objective at the heart of a partnership focused on the poor is to address inequalities in service provision. The problem of unequal access to basic services creates and results in the physical, political and social marginalisation of poor households. Chapters 5 and 6 described how equity in service delivery is inevitably affected by the capacity of poor households themselves, the support they receive from other organisations and the individual and group capacity building integrated into the delivery process. Throughout this chapter, we present a broad range of elements within the partnership framework, such as how quality of service and service coverage each affect the access the poor have to better services. The following section proposes that improving affordability, considering alternative payment mechanisms and increasing choice are also key steps in achieving greater equity.
Box 7.6 Enhancing Service Affordability | |
In 1997 the Bolivian government, as part of its strategy to provide all households in poor peri-urban areas with high-quality water and sewer connections, awarded a 30-year concession for the operation of services in the La Paz-El Alto metropolitan areas to Aguas del Illilmani, a consortium headed by Lyonnaise des Eaux. A major objective of the concession contract was to improve access to water and sewerage services in El Alto (see Box 6.20), where about 60% of the population lives beneath the poverty line, and about 40% beneath the extreme poverty line. The ambitious expansion targets for the first four years of the concession in El Alto included reaching 100% water coverage and making 38,000 new sewerage connections. The very high levels of poverty in El Alto raised particular concerns about the affordability of the new water and sewerage services. The average monthly household income is US$122 (equivalent to US$0.80 per capita per day), compared with connection costs of US$229 for a conventional water connection and US$276 for a conventional sewerage connection. This prompted a search for ways to reduce the cost of services to these low-income households, and as a result the El Alto Pilot Project came into being (see also Box 6.20). The El Alto Pilot Project (EAPP) combined a number of innovative components. In order to reduce the cost of providing service connections, condominial network designs were adopted and built by means of community labour. In order to maximise the benefits of these new connections, hygiene education and micro-credit facilities were provided to support households in the construction of their own bathrooms and related sanitary installations. Drawing on technical lessons learnt in Brazil over the last two decades, the condominial network system provides residential connections through a secondary and tertiary network aimed at reducing installation time and cost. Both water supply and sewerage pipework is planned and constructed along the front or rear of household plots and under pavements rather than roads - always in locations where access in straightforward and pipework lengths can be reduced. Costs are reduced by minimising the length of pipe used, the size of pipe specified, and the depth at which it is located underground. One of the key characteristics of the condominial alternative is that the approach can be adopted without detriment to the quality of service. Analysis of the EAPP experience suggests that savings in the length and diameter of pipes are of the order of 10-20%, while savings in the volume of soil excavation as a result of shallower trenches are of the order of 45-75%. These physical savings translate into overall financial savings of the order of 24% for the sewerage service and 40% for the water service, when the condominial engineering design is implemented using conventional contractors. One of the key characteristics of the condominial alternative is that the approach can be adopted without detriment to the quality of service. Connection costs can be further reduced if community labour is used in constructing the condominial branches of the network. The decrease in the overall scale of the works to be undertaken increases the opportunity for community involvement in the implementation process. Residents can provide labour for the excavation and filling-in works carried out at the installation and maintenance stages. In El Alto, community participation reduced the network expansion costs by a further 26% for the sewerage service and 10% for the water service, bringing the overall cost reduction of condominial design plus community participation to 50% for both services. It is necessary, however, to account for the additional costs of social intermediation associated with community participation. In El Alto, a team of social workers was recruited to engage with the community, explain the project, assist in organising condominial units, train them in the necessary construction techniques and supervise the construction process. This was achieved through capacity building workshops and individual visits to each participating household. Each household contributed about one personweek to constructing the network and attending the associated workshops. The total cost of this social intermediation to the utility came to US$8 per household per service, while the household's time can be valued at around US$20. When these costs are added to the network expansion costs, the overall cost saving achieved falls from 50% to around 40% for both the water and sewerage services. Notwithstanding these costs, this approach not only succeeded in reducing connection costs but also increased the proportion of households connecting to the sewerage service to 75%, compared with 66% in a control neighbourhood. Since its inception in 1998, the EAPP has provided condominial water connections to 1977 households in eight neighbourhoods of El Alto, and condominial sewerage connections to 4050 households in nine neighbourhoods. As experience elsewhere suggests, the provision of piped water and sewerage services to low-income neighbourhoods is a particularly challenging problem. On the one hand, the costs of such services are often prohibitively high for poor families. On the other hand - even when networks can be extended - households do not necessarily benefit fully from the services if they do not connect or do not change hygiene practices once connected. The peculiar cultural, geographical and social circumstances of El Alto make it - if anything - an acid test for the condominial approach. | |
Sources: Water and Sanitation Program, 2001b; Water and Sanitation Program 2001c; Foster, 2001 | |