Institutional framework, water pricing structures and costs of domestic water services in rural poor areas of the Olifants River Basin, South Africa

Designing financing mechanisms that ensure improved access to water for rural poor while ensuring the sustainability of water services has been identified as a key to fulfilling the goals of water policy in South Africa. Even though several studies have analysed determinants of water demand and users` willingness to pay, less is understood about characteristics of rural water supply in terms of level of services, costs and financing therefore justifying this study. In order to do this literature and interviews at national level help to understand the socio-economic context of the study area and the organisation of the domestic water sector in South Africa. This information is presented in section 1 to help the reader to understand the South African context of domestic water before introducing economic theory. Literature on economic background helps to explain and specify the problematic of this study. This will be presented in section 2. Context and economic background contribute to the methodology chosen. Section will present and explain this methodology, which involves a three-step strategy with meeting of national stakeholders of the water services sector and a survey a more local level of water services responsibilities. The survey provided for the second step of the strategy permitted to precise the real organisation of the domestic water sector in the study area. As presented in section 4.1, this organisation is not as well structured as the theoretical one. Section 4.2 presents pricing policies applied in the study area and their evaluation. At least, section 4.3 offers a description and a typology water services networks in our study area.