Zambia
5.1.6 Intra-Urban Disparities
Whereas the above figure presents the disparity in rural-urban terms, it hides the disparities that exist within the urban areas, between conventional (urban per se) and peri-urban areas. The disparity in access levels between urban and peri-urban, which is often not captured in the official statistics reflects severe disparities in the supply of water services (WSP, 2004). While the official figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) put the level of access to water for urban areas at 85%, research conducted by the DTF puts access to safe sources of water for peri-urban areas at 35% (DTF, 2006:
DVD). Disparities in access to water between people in the same city is not only in terms of sources of safe water, but also in terms of the quality of services as manifested by indicators such as the hours of services, time taken to respond to reported customer complaints, connection percentage, metering ratio and billing efficiency. But these intra-urban disparities, which are often hidden in official statistics, results in a situation where the peri-urban and low income areas' sources of water being assessed on the
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basis of services provided to conventional areas. Interviews with residents from the peri-urban areas highlight this systematic strategy to underplay peri-urban water problems. Most of the respondents pointed out that there is a big difference in the quality of services provided and the prices charged between low income and high income areas. One of the peri-urban community leaders explained the nature of the disparity.
In most cases there is disparity: they supply more water and good quality water to people who have money, people who drive and segregate the low income groups.... You find that we are being over-charged in the communities than people in the ma yard {Community Leaders Interviews, 2007).
Unfortunately, it is areas with high incidence of poverty who are made to pay more for services of even of a poorer quality. When head count poverty for low cost areas (which include peri-urban areas) is compared to that of high and medium income areas, the disparities in the incidence of poverty become obvious. For instance while the proportion of extremely poor in high cost areas was only 4%, 39% of the population in the low cost areas were classified as extremely poor in 2003. In terms of the total poverty head count, 62% of the population in low cost areas were poor in 2003 compared to only 8% in high cost areas as Table 5.4 below shows.
Table 5. 4 Poverty Head-Count by Type of Residence All Zambia
Low Cost Medium Cost
High Cost
Extremely Poor 46
39 17 4
Moderately Poor 21
23 13 4
None Poor 33 38 70 92
S o u r c e : Based on Data from LCMS2002/2003 (2005:116)
Similar inequalities emerge when income per capita is considered. As Figure 5.4 below shows, income per capita in low cost areas was only slightly over half of per capita income for high cost areas.
Figure 5. 4 Per Capital Income by Type of Residence
Urban Low Cost Urban Medium Urban High Cost All Zambia Cost
Type of Residence S o u r c e : Based on Data from LCMS 2004 (2005:88)
Employment trends also reveal a similar pattern. Most of the people in low cost areas (that is 62%) are in informal employment while majority of the people in high cost areas (60%) are in formal employment as Figure 5.5 below shows. One of the implications of this is that these factors have a critical bearing on access to water.
100 o O) 80
"c (0
<u o
h .
<D
0.
60 40 20
Figure 5. 5 Formal Employment by Residence
I Formal informal
All Zambia Low Cost Medium Cost High Cost
S o u r c e : Based on Data from LCMS 2004 (2005:88)
The other important aspect the brings out the disparities between low cost and high cost areas is the composition of household expenditure. Looking at Figure 5.6 below it is clear that most households in
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the high cost areas spend a smaller proportion of their expenditure on food when compared to households in the low cost areas.
Figure 5.6 Household Expenditure by Residential Area
Low Cost
Rent 12%
Non-Food m ^ ^ 1 \
Food
63%
High Cost
Rent
22% Food 33%
Non-Food 45%
Source: LCMS 2002/2003 (2004:104).
While households in peri-urban, on average, spend 63% of their total household expenditure on food, households in high income areas spend only about 33% of their total household expenditure on food.
Spending 63% of household expenditure on food implies that there is less flexibility in spending options for low cost households given the fact that expenditure on food often is given a higher priority because of the importance of food in a household. Because of this, low income households have less to spend on non-food elements of their household needs. The opposite, however, is the case for households in the high cost category—their expenditure shows a large margin of flexibility in the sense that the non-food component is relatively larger. This phenomenon seems to reflect the famous Engle 's Law that as income increases the proportion of household income spent on food decreases while the percentage spent on non-food increases. In terms of access to water, this pattern could be an indication that households in the low cost category experience higher constraints in accessing water than households in the high cost areas. Surprisingly, it is households in the high cost areas that seem to be receiving the attention in both policy and investment decisions as we shall see later.