%0 Book Section %T The Paradox Of Free Urban Water: Burkina Faso’s Fight Against Covid-19 %+ Laboratoire d'Etude et de Recherche sur l'Economie, les Politiques et les Systèmes Sociaux (LEREPS) %A Baron, Catherine %A Guigma, Léandre %B Public Water and Covid-19: Dark Clouds and Silver Linings %E David A. McDonald %E Susan Spronk %E Daniel Chavez %I Municipal Services Project %P 375-392 %8 2020 %D 2020 %Z Environmental Sciences/Environmental and SocietyBook sections %X As soon as the first cases of Covid-19 were reported in BurkinaFaso, the national government drew up a Response Plan,which, among other measures, made water free at standpipesand for “social tariff” recipients in urban areas. The governmentassessed the financing needs of running this program and soliciteddonor assistance. This chapter analyzes the consequences of thesemeasures on the public water operator, l’Office national de l’eau etde l’assainissement (ONEA), which plans to ensure the supply ofdrinking water to as many urban households as possible by 2030.We also report on a survey conducted in Bissighin – an “irregular”neighborhood of the capital city, Ouagadougou – which documentshow households have (or have not) appropriated these measuresand the strategies they have developed to ensure their water supplyin the context of the pandemic. %G English %L hal-03146289 %U https://univ-tlse2.hal.science/hal-03146289 %~ SDE %~ UNIV-TLSE2 %~ GIP-BE %~ SMS %~ UT1-CAPITOLE %~ LEREPS