Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: William Fox 
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Author-Workplace-Name: Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University
Author-Workplace-Homepage: http://aysps.gsu.edu/index.html
Author-Name: Kelly Edmiston
Author-Email:
Author-Workplace-Name: Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University
Author-Workplace-Homepage: http://aysps.gsu.edu/index.html
Title: User Charge Financing of Urban Public Services in Africa 
Abstract: Expansion and improvement of public services is essential to improving quality of 
 life and productivity in developing countries. Some African countries have been diligent in 
 expanding the infrastructure necessary to provide public services, but unfortunately, most have
 not done a very good job of paying for them. Imposition of user charges to fund public services
 would go far toward eliminating the financial problems faced by many African countries 
 in providing services and would raise additional revenues that could be used to pay for 
 other government expenditures. In addition to the financial benefits of user charges,
 there are many other benefits from their imposition. User charges have the potential 
 to greatly improve the public sector’s efficiency, to impart a more equitable distribution of 
 the financing burden of public services, to provide better information regarding infrastructure
 needs, and to improve the quality of existing services.This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the general nature of user charges: 
 what they are, the services upon which they should be imposed, and evidence of the willingness 
 to pay them. Section 3 discusses the extent to which user charges have been imposed in 
 Africa in the past. Section 4 articulates the theory behind the efficient pricing of 
 public services, resulting in a guide for setting appropriate user charges - in general 
 as well as under special but common circumstances. Section 5 addresses the revenue implications
 of user charge financing, including the tendency of efficient prices to raise adequate revenues,
 ways to recover costs when efficient prices lead to deficits, and the attractiveness of 
 user charges for taxation. Section 6 examines equity considerations of user charges. 
 Finally, the analysis is brought together in section 7 by means of a case study of water supply 
 services in Egypt. Throughout the paper, special attention is paid to the practical 
 issues of levying user charges in Africa, issues which are too often overlooked in 
 the literature. Concluding comments are provided in Section 8. 
Keywords:User Charge, Urban Public Services,Africa 
Length: 31 pages
Creation-Date: 2000-07-01
File-URL:http://icepp.gsu.edu/files/2015/03/ispwp0004.pdf
File-Format:Application/PDF
Handle: RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper0004