Real costs and benefits of water and sanitation

Cost information is key to advocacy of sustainable water and sanitation services. According to Clarissa Brocklehurst, Head of Water, Environment and Sanitation Section, UNICEF is starting to look into the full life-cycle cost in order to justify investments as other sectors do (health and education).

WASHCost co-convened a session with organisations looking into costs and benefits of Water and Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) interventions. The conclusion from diverse studies show the difficulty of accessing cost information.

There is also still much discussion on the methodologies on how to measure benefits in the water sector. Numbers are so context specific that it is critical to adapt at country level and for local needs. For example, a hand pump can be three times more costly in two areas: within the same district or between Asia and Africa. Materials used in construction, geological conditions or aspects such as labour availability are all factors to take into account.

Harmonisation of methodology

The real value of cost/benefit information lies in the harmonisation of a widely accepted methodology to assess the life-cycle costs of WASH service delivery. A government official of the Ministry of Water and Environment of Uganda, Aaron Kabirizi, explained it clearly, “We need to know if we should invest in new infrastructure or if we should rehabilitate what is already there.” Concerning benefits, he mentioned, “Our budget for the water sector just decreased. With cost-benefit analysis we will be able to argue better for increased funds.”

What seems to be critical is the re-packaging of the information, both for the use of practitioners and for advocacy purposes. When questioned by the audience about the spending of large amount of aid on hand pumps that only last a couple of years, the Head of the Water, Environment and Sanitation Section of UNICEF, Clarissa Brocklehurst, said that UNICEF is starting to look into the full life-cycle cost in order to justify investments as other sectors do (health and education). Additionally, Peter Feltman from PLAN International added ‘that life-cycle unit costs are a way of incorporating accountability into this business.’

See for more the WASHCost project site.