15.5.3  Water vendors

In a survey of three poor areas of Addis Ababa (Sharma and Bereket, 2008), it was found that 17% of the respondents (Figure 15.3) obtained their water from water vendors who had originally purchased the water from the public water utility (the Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority). The water vendors in cities are usually people who have private taps in their homes or yards and who sell water from these. The price at which the vendors sold the water to the end users was again about eight times the price paid for the water, corroborating the findings of Howard (2005). Sharma and Bereket found in their survey that most people would have preferred to have their own private tap but the high initial cost of a private connection was prohibitive. If this could be paid in small instalments, 90% of those keen to acquire a private tap would take up the option. In Kombolcha, in Amhara Region it is possible to do this, with the set-up cost being paid in four instalments. There is scope for a private–public partnership here, with private companies providing the administrative arrangements to collect the instalments.

Figure 15.3  Means of obtaining water in three poor areas of Addis Ababa in 2008. (Sharma and Bereket, 2008)

There are also water vendors who sell water from horse-drawn or donkey-drawn carts (Figure 15.4).

Figure 15.4  A water vendor selling from a donkey-drawn cart in Ethiopia.