  A significant proportion of slum residents offer vital services that are
relied upon by wealthier urban residents. However, the lack of access to clean
drinking water and adequate sanitation facilities causes considerable health
risks for slum residents, leading to interruption in services and potential
transmission of diseases to the beneficiaries. This study explores the
willingness of the households benefitting from these services to contribute
financially towards the measures that can mitigate the negative externalities
of the diseases resulting from poor water and sanitation in slums. This study
adopts the Contingent Valuation Method using face-to-face interviews with 260
service-receiving households in Chittagong City Corporation of Bangladesh.
Estimating the logistic regression model, the findings indicate that 74 percent
of respondents express their willingness to contribute financially towards an
improvement of water and sanitation facilities in the slums. Within this group,
16 percent are willing to pay 1.88 USD/month, 18 percent prefer 3.86 USD/year,
and 40 percent are willing to contribute a lump sum of 3.92 USD. The empirical
findings suggest a significant influence of gender, college, and housemaids
working hours in the households on respondents willingness to pay. For example,
female respondents with a college degree and households with longer working
hours of housemaids are more likely to contribute towards the improvement of
the water and sanitation facilities in slums. Though the findings are
statistically significant at a 5% level across different estimated models, the
regression model exhibits a low goodness of fit.
