Biblio

The aim of the paper is to analyze the pattern of rural household access to improved water supply in Nigeria. This is necessary in order to provide a comprehensive spatial picture of rural households? access to water supply in the country since existing studies are centred on few selected localities. To achieve the aim, relevant data were obtained from the Core Welfare indicator Questionnaire Survey Nigeria, 2006 and analysed by both descriptive statistics and cluster analysis. Specifically, access to water supply was calculated as the percentages of households with less than 30 minutes to reach the nearest drinking water supply while the states were grouped according to the magnitude of access using hierarchical cluster analysis. The results show that the national average of rural household access to water supply is 40% while 14 out of the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT), have access bellow the national average. The cluster analysis shows 4 groups of states on the basis of similarities on levels of access to water supply. The policy implications of the findings for water supply development in the country are highlighted including the need for the involvement of rural communities in water supply development.