Abstract:
Safe water supply is one of the important Millennium Goals. For development of
market water supply services, the willingness of consumers to pay is essential. The consumers’
willingness to pay (WTP) for piped water supply using the contingent valuation (CV)
method with different starting point bids was investigated for the Pavlodar Region,
Kazakhstan. The results showed that households with access to groundwater (well or
borehole water users) perceived this as of good quality. Consumers without access to
groundwater used open-source, standpipe or delivered water for which they had to travel and
spend time or to pay. Open source water and standpipe water quality was perceived as bad
or satisfactory. More than 90% of the consumers were willing to pay for better water quality
and regular water supply. The mean WTP was estimated to be about 1120 in bids and about
1590 KZT per household per month in open-ended question format (150 KZT is ~1 USD as
of January 2012). The results can be used to better identify the proper technological choice
and the level of service to be provided making rural water projects both sustainable and
replicable at a larger scale.
