Public-private partnership approach towards enhancing water accessibility in Busia municipality, Kenya

Abstract

Access to safe drinking water remains a challenge for most developing countries including Kenya, which is already classified as water-scarce. To enhance water supply to consumers, the Government of Kenya enacted the Water Act 2002 that opened the door for private sector to partner with the government to revitalize water service delivery. As a result, the government has partnered with the private sector and civil society organizations to enhance access to safe drinking water and sanitation services with a special focus on the materially-dispossessed households. However, the partnership is faced with challenges including inadequate resources and poor working relationship between the public and private sector. This paper assesses the impact of the partnership approach in scaling up water service provision in order to enhance its access by poor households. Household survey and key informants interviews were the main data collection methods and the collected data was analysed using descriptive statistics. The study found out that Public-Private Partnership (PPP) approach has enhanced water accessibility in Busia Municipality since the majority of households (84.4%) can access water within a distance less than one kilometre, however, the residents’ complaint of high water bills attributed to the private sector involvement