In large parts of the world, people cannot be so sure that the water is running from their tap. Each day is a challenge to get the water they need for drinking and washing.
It is common practice to place a pump in a village, to provide water. But after two or three years the pump stops working and nobody is able to fix it, leaving the villages without water again. A new system is being put into place by another organisation. After some time, also this system breaks down again.
40% of the systems are not functioning the way they should. How can we change this? By taking all the costs into account, the so-called life-cycle costs for service delivery.
This short animation explains what the life-cycle cost components are and how to measure service, taking into account the indicators of quantity, quality, accessibility and reliability.
WASHCost is a five-year action research programme, running from 2008 to 2012. The WASHCost team is gathering information related to the true costs of providing water, sanitation, and hygiene services for an entire life-cycle of a service – from implementation all the way to post-construction.
IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre is leading the WASHCost programme and works with several partners to collect data in the rural and peri-urban areas of Burkina Faso, Ghana, India, and Mozambique.
More info: IRC_WASHCost
Produced by: IRC
Year: 2013
Language: English
Region: Ghana, India, Mozambique and Burkina-Faso
