Water and Sanitation in Dhaka Slums : Access, Quality, and Informality in Service Provision
Urban slum residents often have worse health outcomes compared with other urbanites and even their rural counterparts. This suggests that slum residents do not always benefit from the "urban advantage" of enjoying better access to health-...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/607511534337128809/Water-and-sanitation-in-Dhaka-slums-access-quality-and-informality-in-service-provision http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30242 |
| Summary: | Urban slum residents often have worse
health outcomes compared with other urbanites and even their
rural counterparts. This suggests that slum residents do not
always benefit from the "urban advantage" of
enjoying better access to health-promoting services.
Limited access to water and sanitation services in slums
could contribute to poor health of slum residents. In
Bangladesh, these services generally are not delivered
through formal utilities, but rather through
well-functioning informal markets that are operated by
middlemen and local providers. This paper analyzes a
household survey to examine living conditions and quality of
access to water and sanitation services in small-, medium-,
and large-sized slums across Dhaka, Bangladesh. The analysis
finds that access to water and sanitation services is
overall quite high, but these services are subject to
important quality issues related to safety, reliability, and
liability. Although water access is nearly universal, water
services are often interrupted or sometimes inaccessible.
Sanitation is commonly shared, with the average ratio being
16 households to one facility. When considering fecal sludge
management, the study finds that only 2 percent of these
households have access to the Joint Monitoring
Programme's conceptualization of "safely managed
sanitation." The paper also finds strong evidence that
water and sanitation services are operated by middlemen at
various stages of service provision such as installation,
management, and payment collection. The paper provides a
snapshot of the differential quality in access to these
services based on the monetary welfare level of the
household. The snapshot shows that access to water and
sanitation services is highly correlated to per capita
household consumption levels, although quality remains low
overall within slums. Overall, it is likely that the
informality of water and sanitation services may exacerbate
social and environmental risk factors for poor health and well-being. |
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