Good Practices for Estimating Reliable Willingness-to-Pay Values in the Water Supply and Sanitation Sector

Abstract

Beneficiaries’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates provide crucial information for designing water supply and sanitation (WSS) projects. Contingent valuation (CV) method is widely used to estimate WTP in WSS project preparation, and poor quality CV studies is cause for concern. There is a pressing need to improve the quality of CV studies conducted in developing countries because such study findings may provide misleading information on project feasibility. This paper distills knowledge on CV methods generated during the last two decades to provide practical guidelines for skillfully undertaking CV studies. The paper recommends good practices in design, survey administration, and analysis, and provides a quality checklist for team/mission leaders to ensure quality of CV studies in the WSS sector.