Everyone likes new equipment. However, it is the quality of the service received that counts, rather than the infrastructure. People who use water and sanitation often find that the investment in their services brings only short-term relief. One reason that investments fail is that they do not take into account the actual costs of sustaining a particular quality of service. The result is a ‘graveyard of investments’. Sessions under this theme during the IRC symposium 2010 will provoke another way of thinking about investments in the sector and how to improve decision making for sustainable investments in WASH.

Life cycle costs approach: beyond construction

After decades of work, many of us in the sector still do not know how much our interventions actually cost or will cost in the future. Critical components include the costs of capital infrastructure, recurrent operation and maintenance, capital maintenance (when equipment must be replaced), institutional development and capacity building as well as other support costs. Yet many stakeholders could not even list what these costs are. Clearly, there cannot be proper planning and budgeting by local governments, donors or others without accurate cost information to support – and even drive – these processes.

New initiatives, including the WASHCost Project have started to shine a light on what it really costs to provide water and sanitation services. This part of the IRC symposium 2010 will provide a forum to discuss the findings of the latest research studies.

Getting the numbers: costing methodologies

Methodological improvements have been made over recent years to better understand the cost of providing WASH, using particular technologies and against particular levels of service (quantity, quality, distance, etc.). This session will focus on how to ensure relevant comparisons are made in informing WASH service delivery, drawing upon experiences in comparative cost information on both technologies and service levels. The WASHCost project will share elements of its research protocol including key concepts, definitions, and multiple methods for costing.

Towards cost-effectiveness: using cost information in decision making

Understanding the costs of the full life-cycle of service delivery and learning how to make relevant comparisons is the first step towards better decision making. This session will discuss how cost information is currently used in decision-making and agenda setting, and how that can be improved.

Nick Dickinson and Catarina Fonseca

This is the first of three articles that will look at symposium themes in more detail and outline key topics. The next two issues of Source Bulletin will carry information about the financing and accountability parts of the symposium agenda. More on the IRC symposium 2010 can be found on www.irc.nl/symposium

Tags: financing, rural wash, urban wash