WASHCost in Mozambique

The water supply and sanitation sector in Mozambique has been adopting measures towards ensuring the sustainability of the services provided. In spite of the innovative approaches introduced during the past decade, there are still problems related to sustainability and uncertainty of services provided to the citizens. One of the factors contributing to this situation is the persistence of a project based approach, where emphasis is put on the construction of infrastructures. This is a structural problem in the planning and budgeting process of most of the sectors dealing with infrastructures in our country.

WASHCost is a 5 year research project on costs related to water supply, sanitation and hygiene services, in rural and peri-urban areas, and is aimed at deciphering the costs related to the whole structure of service provision.

The objective of the project is to make available to decision makers, relevant information on unit costs, which can be used in the planning and budgeting processes.

The project approach is based on the creation of a Learning Alliance with key stakeholders of the water supply, sanitation and hygiene process (government, donors, NGOs, Academia and private sector), who participate actively in the definition of priorities and in the implementation of the research.
The main project product will be the development of decision support tools that take into account the real and disaggregated costs of WASH services.