PhD Candidate to present findings on urban water insecurity and public health
PhD Candidate Abdiaziz Ahmed at Charles University. Photo: EPRU
University of Cape Town PhD Candidate Abdiaziz Ahmed of EPRU will present his paper examining waterborne diseases and household water insecurity at “The 27th Annual Conference on Environmental Economics, Policy and International Environmental Relations” on the 28th of November 2025.
The paper, co-authored with his supervisor, Professor Martine Visser, investigates how the levels of household water insecurity affect the incidence of waterborne diseases in urban Kenya. Their findings show that household water insecurity significantly increases the likelihood of waterborne disease, underscoring the importance of water access for public health. Abdiaziz Ahmed is currently a visiting research student in environmental economics at the Charles University Environment Center in Prague. His research is funded by the EU under the GEOCEP project.
Builds on previous research
This paper follows research done by Prof Martine Visser on water burden sharing preferences in Cape Town in response to the drought it experienced in 2015-2018. This research has developed experimental techniques to examine water burden sharing across sub-Saharan Africa.
Presented a paper on nudges and water consumption
Earlier this year, during Abdiaziz’s first visit to Charles University, he presented another PhD paper looking into nudges and water consumption in the City of Cape Town at their Environmental Center Seminar Series. This paper, also co-authored with Prof Martine Visser, received valuable feedback which helped strengthen the paper.
Attended multiple academic workshops throughout the year
Beyond his research visits to Europe, Abdiaziz has participated in several academic and methodological events across the continent. These include the German and Italian Stata Conferences in Hamburg and Milan, as well as the Replication Games at the University of Göttingen. These events have, among others, focused on applied microeconometrics, causal inference, and heterogeneous DiD.
See the preliminary programe for the upcoming conference here
Josh Gray