Research outputs
Research reports with findings from the WASHCost project.
Briefing Note 1b - Services are forever: the importance of capital maintenance (CapManEx) in ensuring sustainable WASH services
A dearth in available data, methodologies and analyses in understanding the full life-cycle costs of maintenance in planning is among the major challenges faced by the water and sanitation sector. This often results in systems failure, overly-expensive investments, and serious disruptions in service delivery and access to water. This briefing note introduces the concept of capital maintenance expenditure (CapManEx) as a potential way forward to filling this gap. It is a valuable resource for policymakers, practitioners, donors and researchers that ‘...clarifies the concept of CapManEx relative to capital expenditure (CapEx) and operating expenditure (OpEx), outlines reasons to investigate these cost classifications and addresses some challenges in collecting and using the data.’
Briefing Note 2 - Decentralisation and the use of cost data in WASHCost project countries
Decentralisation has been in progress for many years in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mozambique and the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh but the process of devolving and de-concentrating powers to local bodies is slow and incomplete. Bodies responsible for water and sanitation at regional, provincial and district/Mandal levels need strengthening. Donors and NGOs that pursue their own programmes and projects hinder the proper development of local and national plans. The use of cost data by those responsible for planning and delivering services is limited to capital costs (CapEx). However, there is a growing understanding of the need to cover maintenance costs (CapManEx) and indirect support costs (ExpIDS). WASHCost can help authorities to develop an understanding of the life-cycle costs approach and a methodology for capturing and using data. WASHCost has the potential to improve planning and reporting processes, however, it is important to manage expectations, since this will take time.
WASHCost_BriefingNoteNo2_08ncov.pdf (213 kB)
Briefing Note 1 - Life-cycle costs approach
This briefing note describes the cost components in the life-cycle costs approach. Life-cycle costs (LCC) represent the aggregate costs of ensuring delivery of adequate, equitable and sustainable WASH services to a population in a specified area. These costs include the construction and maintenance of systems in the short and longer term, taking into account the need for hardware and software, operation and maintenance, capital maintenance, the cost of capital, source protection, and the need for direct and indirect support, including training, planning and institutional pro-poor support. The delivery of sustainable services also requires that financial systems are in place to ensure that infrastructure can be replaced at the end of its useful life and to extend delivery systems in response to increases in demand. This is the ‘life-cycle’ at the heart of this approach - what is needed to sustain, repair and replace a water (or sanitation) system through the whole of its cycle of wear, repair and renewal.
Working paper 2 - Ladders for assessing and costing water service delivery
This working paper introduces the concept of service levels, grouped as if rungs on a ladder, as a way of differentiating between broad and recognisable types (levels) of service. By developing this metaphor, we provide a structure to analyse the data being collected in different countries and settings, not just in terms of the technologies
being used, but in terms of the domestic water services being received.
