The design of municipal water tariffs requires balancing multiple criteria such as financial self-sufficiency for the service provider, equity, and economic efficiency for society. A modelling framework is developed for analysing how alternative municipal water tariff designs affect these three criteria. It is then applied to a hypothetical community in which a municipal water utility provides metered, piped water and wastewater services to 5,000 households.

Abstract: In this paper, we analyze water demand by urban households in Rwanda who currently lack a piped connection into their home. The analysis uses data from a cross-sectional survey. The results show that public taps are the most widely used water source and that the demand for water from this source is more inelastic than that for water from other water sources. Although some households combine different sources of water, the majority in the sample uses only one source.