Household’s Living Conditions in Informal Settlements-influence on Access to Domestic Water in Nairobi City.

Abstract

Access to domestic water in the Informal settlements of Sub Saharan Africa and the larger developing world is a problem that has been widely investigated. Living conditions in Informal settlements have been reported to differ across cities, countries and regions although there are similar characteristics exhibited by each and every one of them. Access to domestic water in the informal settlements have been attributed to several factors. While a number of factors have been presented to affect access to domestic water in informal settlements, Household Living are some of the most recent focus that influence the access to domestic water in the areas. The role of Household Living Conditions as an influence on access to domestic water in informal settlements has not been widely explored by studies. The study employed primary data that was collected from selected Informal settlements in 2017. Using a cross-sectional design, the initial 2017 study collected both quantitative and qualitative data using questionnaires and Focus Group Discussions. This study employed the quantitative data and drew focus to 4 informal settlements of Nairobi city from 11 in the initial study. The 4 settlements included; Mathare Mashimoni, Kosovo, Mathare 4A and Mathare 4B with a total sample size of 521. Descriptive results showed that most of the respondents (more than 50%) were female and that household sizes were mostly 3-5 people. The results also showed that most of the respondents were casual workers. From the descriptive results most of the respondents sourced their water from water kiosks, in terms of the environmental conditions, most of the respondents reported flooding as a problem in their places of residence. The structure construction materials of the respondent’s units (walls) was mostly corrugated iron sheets/tin and lastly in terms of the Land/Structure Tenure, most of the respondents were renting their residential units. From the bivariate analysis to determine relationship conducted through Chi-Square tests showed that access to domestic water differed across Water Sources, Environmental conditions, Structure Construction Material and Land/Structure Tenure. The regression analysis results derived from a Binary Logistic regression showed that some elements of Household Living Conditions; Environmental conditions and Structure Construction Materials had a significant influence on access to domestic water in the settlements under study while others (Water sources and Land/Structure Tenure) did not. The direction of the relationship between the dependent variable and the independent variables in the model suggested that there is a possibility that all the predictors/independent variables could influence access to domestic water in the study sample. The study concludes that Household living conditions had influence (both significant influence and non-significant influence) on access to domestic water in the settlements under study.