Dr. Simon Wagura Ndiritu a lecturer at Strathmore Business School has co-authored a discussion paper entitled: Risk Perception, Choice of Drinking Water, and Water Treatment. Evidence from Kenyan Towns. EfD Discussion Paper EfD DP 13-10.

The study uses household survey data from four Kenyan towns to examine the effect of households’ characteristics and risk perceptions on their decision to treat/filter water as well as their choice of main drinking water source. Because the two decisions may be jointly made by the household, a seemingly unrelated bivariate probit model is estimated. It turns out that treating non-piped water and using piped water as a main drinking water source are substitutes. The evidence supports the finding that perceived risks significantly correlate with a household’s decision to treat/filter unimproved non-pipe water before drinking it. The study also finds that higher connection fees reduce the likelihood of households connecting to the piped network. Because the current connection fee acts as a cost hurdle which deters households from getting a connection, the study recommends a system where households pay the connection fee in installments, through a prepaid water scheme or through a subsidy scheme.

Dr. Ndiritu holds a PhD. in Economics from School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He completed his MA (Economics) degree in August 2007 with the best master thesis. He also holds a Bachelor of Education (Economics and Mathematics) degree (First class honours). Before joining the PhD program he taught at the School of Economics, University of Nairobi, Kenya. He has a broad research interest in Applied Micro- Econometrics, Environmental resources, Economics of Water Resources, Agriculture and Development Economics. He has worked on collaborative research with CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) scientists. Simon has worked extensively on agricultural economics on topic such as food security, gender issues in technology adoption and post-harvest losses. He has great interest in agribusiness. Simon has won several scholarships and awards such as The African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) Academic Board prize for the best Master’s thesis in the 2006/2007 Academic year and the best gender paper for CCAFS 2011 (Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security). His research work has been published in the Regional Environmental Change journal.