Dear All,
As part of my work as a consultant doing policy research and analysis on various WASH issues, I wrote the attached note on behalf of Water & Sanitation for Africa (WSA) to present a recently published study funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Benchmarking of Urban Sanitation Pricing and Tariffs Structure in Africa. The synthesis report is available in SuSanA library at www.susana.org/lang-en/library?view=ccbktypeitem&type=2&id=1698.

The study evaluates the effectiveness of sanitation pricing and tariff
models in six countries to support sustainable and equitable service
delivery. The study also looks at how tariffs are calculated, agreed and
charged; how these tariffs incentivize (or dis-incentivize) sustainable
business models for utilities and local governments as public service
providers; and how these models support service delivery and coverage at
municipality/country level.

The research process identified major information gaps in the areas of
setting the tariffs incorporating different perspectives, tariffs for
on-site sanitation and pit-emptying, politics of sanitation tariffs and
tariffs as a tool to promote stronger citizenship. The synthesis report
highlights the main points for further discussion and some ways current
models could be improved:

- Implementing subsidy schemes that promote the use and construction of
technologies adapted to low-income areas (i.e. on-site sanitation);

- Investing in the construction of sludge treatment plants to feed the
demand for services from households using on-site sanitation;

- Undertaking an analysis of the business options for developing the reuse
of treated sludge or production of bioenergy;

- Revising the government expenditure frameworks to reduce the financial
dependency of utilities and sanitation development programs;

- Establish consultation frameworks with households to identify priority
areas for investment and obtain the necessary data to assess their capacity
to pay;

- Reducing unloading fees at sludge treatment plant to encourage safe
disposal and incentivize the reuse of by-products to generate money or
reduce costs through energy sourcing;

- Produce regulations and standards on technology selection, design,
construction and maintenance of sanitation facilities, as well as on sludge
collection, transportation and disposal so as to limit human and
environmental health risks;

- Define the role of the government, utilities and non-state stakeholders
in the regulation, setting and implementation of tariffs along the
sanitation value chain, in particular for the emptying and transportation
segments.

Enjoy the reading.

Regards.

Pascal