How Small Water Enterprises can contribute to the Millennium Development Goals: Evidence from Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, Khartoum and Accra

Abstract

Small Water Enterprises (SWEs) supply a large share of the water market in the urban centres of most low-income countries. Such SWEs are economically viable, and extend water services to informal settlements that have little prospect of piped water from local utilities. However, they attract comparatively little investment, and even less support from governments. This publication is based on a project designed to identify and test out ways of improving water services delivered to the urban poor through SWEs. In included fieldwork in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Nairobi (Kenya), Khartoum (Sudan) and Accra (Ghana). It considers the importance of SWEs to the urban poor in these cities, and constraints and opportunities in each of the four cities