The impact of water and sanitation access on housing values: The case of Dapaong, Togo

The international community has made a commitment that aims to halve, by 2015, the number of people without access to safe drinking water and hygienic sanitation systems. In Togo, the government struggles to provide the population with access to water and sanitation, despite a proactive policy. We argue that a connection to safe water and sanitation increases housing values. Using collected data from the city of Dapaong, we develop a hedonic price model to capture the relationship between housing values and their characteristics. Our results support the need to accompany any investment in access to water and sanitation with real estate policies, so that the poorest households remain beneficiaries of the pro-poor policies.