At the beginning of 2015, the GSMA Mobile for Development Utilities programme (M4D Utilities), with the support of the UK Government, began working with Etisalat to explore the opportunity for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to partner with service providers in the deployment of mobile-enabled solutions, to improve energy and water access in Nigeria, and Pakistan while growing their off-grid customer base.
This study is the second of a series of four reports and focuses on the potential for mobile-enabled water management solutions to improve utilities water services for piped connections in Nigeria’s urban areas. Based on desk research and field visits, the findings demonstrate that the immediate opportunity lies with leveraging mobile services – such as SMS, voice or mobile applications for communications services or manual reporting – in order to improve customer relationship management and operational efficiencies. In the longer term, as water utilities – State Water Agencies in Nigeria – deploy consumer meters, the market opportunity will grow for MNOs to offer more advanced enabling services, such as remote monitoring and control as well as flexible payment models.
In 2015, 663 million people worldwide still lack improved drinking water sources, of which 319 million live in Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to the global water supply issue, service delivery is a significant, although less quantifiable, challenge for water utilities. While water access is lowest in rural areas, in urban areas, utilities’ services have been continuously degrading, notably due to lack of network maintenance and investment, as well as a growing urban population. Access to piped water on premises – mainly an urban solution – has significantly diminished in Sub-Saharan Africa between 1990 and 2015, from 43 per cent to 33 per cent of the urban population. In Nigeria, only 3 per cent of the urban population, or 2.4 million people, have piped connections, compared to 32 per cent in 1990, or 30.5 million people. As a result, just under 80 million urban dwellers currently do not have access to a piped water source and revert to non-piped improved water (65 million people) or non-improved water (14 million people) such as wells or surface water.
In contrast, mobile networks have become the predominant infrastructure and the ubiquity of mobile services present a growing opportunity for water utilities in urban and peri-urban areas to improve the delivery of water to their customers. In Nigeria, close to 90 per cent of the urban population has mobile coverage. Mobile enabled services, from two-way communication services (e.g. SMS reminders) to improved management of piped connections (e.g. GSM-enabled machine-to-machine remote monitoring and control of the network) and more efficient billing processes (e.g. mobile pill payment), can help water utilities tackle some of their main challenges, which represent 38 per cent of utilities revenues in Nigeria. Recovered revenues could, in turn, be re-invested to improve their existing connections and connect more households.
Click here to read the study on the potential of mobile-enabled water solutions to improve water service delivery in Nigeria, as well as our recommendations to MNOs, utilities and the government, to support the growth of this nascent market.
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