Households’ Ability and Willingness to Pay for the Provision of Sanitary Facilities in the Kassena-Nankana District of the Upper East Region of Ghana

Abstract

Developing nations are confronted with issues of poor sanitation and its implications on human welfare cannot be under-estimated. This challenge cannot be dealt with only by central governments and therefore the need to share this burden with the citizenry by way of cost sharing. However, little is known about the people ability and willingness to pay (WTP) for the provision of sanitary facilities to deal with this poor sanitation problem. The current study contributes to this discussion by offering an empirical assessment of the determinants of households’ WTP and their ability to pay using a recently collected data from the Kassena- Nankana district of the Upper East Region of Ghana. Data was collected by designing and administering questionnaires to 150 households in three communities in the study area using a multi-stage sampling technique. Using probit regression, it is observed that gender, educational status and household size are the major determinants of households’ WTP. Additionally, more than 50% of the households in the study area were able and more willing to pay for the provision of these toilet facilities. It is concluded that households were more prepared to partner with the local government authorities to deal with the poor sanitation issue in the area. The study recommends that government and other developmental partners in the sanitation fraternity should consider partnering with the communities to deal with the sanitation problems.

Keywords: Sanitation, Willingness to pay, Determinants, Ability to Pay, Kassena-Nankana