Mobile Water Payment Innovations in Urban Africa

Mobile water payments offer a secure, low-cost and inclusive mechanism to improve the sustainability of water supply services. With an annual financing gap to meet the African water supply and sanitation MDG of US$9 billion, mobile money presents a promising new approach to revenue collection that is being deployed by mobile network operators and water service providers across East Africa.

mw4d is a research initiative within the Oxford Water Futures Programme at the University of Oxford. mw4d seeks to apply mobile communications technologies within the water sector, with the aim of improving water security and reducing poverty in the developing world.

This new report examines the impacts and implications of mobile water payments with a comparative assessment from urban Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia. 

Based on interviews with water service providers, mobile network operators and water service regulators, this study analyses levels of adoption, customer motivations and barriers, and the distribution of costs and benefits across stakeholders. Primary data from a household survey from a small piped water scheme with a high mobile payment adoption rate provides further, more granular evidence of the motivations and impacts of adoption.

• Download the full report here