Households' Willingness to Pay for Improved Municipal Solid Waste Management Services in Kampala, Uganda

Abstract

The study evaluated households' willingness to pay (WTP) for improved municipal solid waste management (MSWM) services in Kampala and estimated the total revenue and cost recovery that accrued from WTP. The households in each division of Kampala were categorized into three income groups as low, middle and high using the quality of housing in the absence of any other formal way of stratification. A dichotomous choice contingent valuation technique was used to elicit households' WTP, using the openended survey format of contingent valuation method (CVM). The logit linear regression model was used to obtain the WTP of the households. 48.1% of households in Kampala were willing to pay for improved MSWM services with a mean monthly WTP of UGX 5,382 (USD 2.91). The minimum WTP amount per month was UGX 100 (USD 0.054) while the maximum was UGX 70,000 (USD 37.84). The total WTP for low, middle and high household income groups, were respectively UGX 45,635,000, 320,411,000 and 643,523,000 (USD 24,667.57, 173,195.14 and 347,850.27) per month giving a total of about 200% of the total requirement for MSWM in Kampala. The factors which influenced WTP significantly were gender (p<0.001), in which females were 52% more willing to pay than males, age (p=0.012), household size (p<0.001), education level (p<0.001), income level (p<0.001), marital status (p=0.036) and migration status (p=0.045) of household respondents. However, period lived in the area did not affect the WTP for improved MSWM services significantly (p=0.372). At the lowest WTP class average of UGX 500 per month, annual payment per household would be UGX 6,000 (USD 3.24), implying 97% cost recovery with the City government expenditure of UGX 6,190 (USD 3.34) to give the current MSWM service for a household.