Pumps, Pipes and Promises
Costs, Finances and Accountability
for Sustainable WASH Services
Preliminary Synthesis
IRC Symposium 2010
Pumps, Pipes and Promises
16-18 November, The Hague
Broken promises ….
•Broken promises about ... Water, Sanitation
and Hygiene Services
• Not delivered
• Not sustainable
• Not equitable
Costs
• LCCA – for service provision – is the way forward
• Cost for service provided is as (more?) important
than cost for technology
• Data is scattered and difficult to find (easiest for
water, hardest for hygiene)
• Capital Maintenance and Direct Support Costs
are the least understood (and most important!)
• Direct (technical) Support is very important
and relatively expensive
Costs
•Totaling and annualizing per-capita costs is
useful (essential?!) – Totex?!
•Totex for basic rural water supplies seems to
lie in the range 4-40US$/person/year –
probably realistically not less than
20US$/person/year
• And this still doesn’t guarantee an
acceptable service!
• Totex for Sanitation and Hygiene ……. ??
Finance
• Finance needs to take account of, and budget for, full
lifecycle costs
• ALL finance comes from .... Taxes, Tariffs or Transfers
• The challenge is to decide which pays for what!
• Globally - public finance is key – in LDCs aid is essential
• Services cannot be internally sustainable – at the level of the
system
• CapManEx cannot be internally financed – alternative
financing mechanisms are essential - Insurance?
Mutualisation? Tax?
• Little agreement on:
• Who should finance, what, and at what institutional level
(Local) Government? Users? Private sector (probably
not!), Donors (not sustainable)
Accountability
• Agreement that accountability, transparency, integrity are all
essential!
• Transparency (seems to) lead to improved services
• Corruption is everywhere! – it is corrosive, expensive,
destructive – it must be tackled head on!
• Tools exist to tackle it – with promising results
• Be proactive and be preventative – corruption is about
systems as much as (more than?!) morals
• Some solutions exist inside sector – some are wider
(democracy, accountability, rule of law etc.)
• Sector actors DO have a role to play
• Without transparency, and accountability to improved access
to (cost) information is unlikely to lead to improved outcomes
Accountability
•The time to strengthen accountability etc. is at
the start of institutional reform (e.g SWAp,
decentralisation etc.)
Where we (perhaps) need more work
•Understanding the relative importance – and
relationships between – corruption, poor
management, poor governance, lack of access to
information etc.
Cross-cutting agreements
• Costs are important – but not everything!
• Knowing the costs of different service levels – and
matching these with different financing streams is
the first step to achieving sustainability
• But without good (enough) governance, good
(enough) management – progress will not happen
• Accessible information is essential to improved
good service delivery – and it goes beyond
costs!
•Monitor (and hold accountable) on the service
provided – not just the hardware built
•Cost effectiveness in the WASH sector may be
best measured in terms of service delivered
•Transparency (freedom of information) is
essential: of service levels to be delivered (and
related costs and expectations) of financing
Sufficient
financing
Accountability
Quality of
service
Transparency
Availability of
(cost)
information
More work needed …
• What ARE the models for financing post
construction costs? How DO we finance
CapManEx and Direct Support Costs
• What IS the magnitude of REQUIRED
(normative) post-construction elements of
cost?
• Which financing source should pay for what
cost element?
• Who should pay for improved access to
information?!
• Decentralisation is a broad political process. The
question(s) are HOW can decentralised WASH
services be financed and made to work?
• Who does (and spends) what – at what
institutional levels – fulfilling what functions?
• Where does accountability lie in decentralised
service delivery – who monitors who?
•These are questions that must be asked and
answered by countries
Next steps?
• Answer all the above questions!!
• Communicate, communicate, communicate!
• Develop and document approaches AND tools for:
• Life cycle costing
• Monitoring costs and service delivery
• Accountability
• ……