Households’ Water-Use Demand and Willingness to Pay for Improved Water Services in Ijebu Ode Local Government Area, Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined the households’ water choice decision and willingness to pay for improvement in water services. Data were collected from 216 randomly selected households from the ten sub-zones of Ijebu- Ode local government area, Ogun State. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, generalized linear demand and logit regression models. Results show that majority of households’ water supply was from private piped/borehole (64.8%) followed by public piped (18.5%), and well (16.7 %,). Also, majority (58.3%) of the households are dissatisfied with the current water supply situation and the households preferred water choices are public piped (64.4%), private piped/borehole (30.1%) and well water (5.6%).. These preferences of household’s water choices were determined by quality, convenience, availability and cost with 35.6%, 33.3%, 18.5% and 12.5% respectively. It was revealed further that household per capita expenditure on water is N60 (US$0.38) per day an equivalent of N1,800 (US$11.5) per month which are significantly higher than current connection charge for public piped per month. The result of generalized linear demand model shows that connection charges, household size, distance to water source, availability and quality of water source, unit price paid per liter,  and marital status were determinants of households’ water choices. Logit regression analysis result shows that marital status, education, connection charges, household size and income are the correlates of willingness to pay for improved water services in the study area. It was recommended that the government and other donor agencies should facilitate the improvements of public water utilities in this area by increasing the number of public piped to cover all the sub- zones of Ijebu Ode and its environs.

Keywords: Households,  water-use, Willingness to-pay, Generalized linear demand,