Water prices in CEE and CIS countries : a toolkit for assessing willingness to pay, affordability and political acceptability. Volume I. Main text

Large cities and small towns in the CEE and CIS countries presently face significant investments in water and wastewater services. The population wishes to have clean, potable water in their taps, and there is growing awareness on environmental issues, hence also of wastewater treatment. In addition, some CEE countries are upgrading the water services in order to meet EU standards. The water and wastewater services provided should correspond to the preferences of the users and, therefore, detailed demand analysis is important when deciding upon the levels of investments.
This toolkit provides a set of tools to assess the present and future demand for water and wastewater services, the willingness of the consumers to pay for these services and the political acceptability of the consumer charges. The resulting assessment is imperative for both policy makers and private investors, in order for them to choose the appropriate level and type of investment. The report includes tools for both public - private partnerships and traditional investment projects.
The tools are developed for use by the project sponsor (i.e. public administration, investor or daily operator), possible donors and international financial intermediaries, other lenders and their advisors.
It can also be useful for specialists familiar with technical, economic, market research and policy analysis, in the context of investments in water services infrastructure in the CEE and CIS countries. With some modifications, the tool will also be applicable for use in water services for urban agglomerations in developing countries.