Willingness to pay for faecal sludge management services - a scoping review

Abstract Under Sustainable Development Goal 6, a target (6.2) of achieving universal access to safely managed sanitation services was established. For safely managed sanitation, waste must be safely disposed of in situ or transported and treated offsite. The cost and availability of services to ensure safe management of onsite sanitation, such as pit latrines and septic tanks, can be major barriers for poor households. This scoping review aimed to scope the literature on willingness to pay (WTP) for emptying onsite sanitation and identify determinants of WTP and gaps in knowledge. Through searches of six databases, and after de-duplication, we identified 1,846 studies, of which 14 studies were included after review. Within the 14 included studies we identified 26 distinct investigation scenarios that reported WTP and market price. Among them, 77% (20/26 scenarios) reported that the WTP was lower than the market price. Twenty statistically significant determinants of WTP were identified, which we categorised as economic situation, urgency, service characteristics, service accessibility, and knowledge. The principal knowledge gap was WTP for services designed to reduce prices and/or increase WTP by improving supply-side efficiency or using mobile money. Addressing this gap could help address the challenge of achieving safely managed services for all.