WASHCost

WASHCost

The WASHCost project (2008-2013) set out to fill a glaring gap in information about the costs of water, sanitation and hygiene services in rural and peri-urban areas not served by utilities and about the spending needed to ensure that they survive in the long term. It was born in reaction to the poverty of data that threatened the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals for water and sanitation. WASHCost teams in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mozambique and Andhra Pradesh (India) collected and analysed cost and service level information for water, sanitation and hygiene in rural and peri-urban areas, applying the life-cycle costs approach. The life-cycle costs approach examines the complex relationships between expenditure, service delivery, poverty, effectiveness and sustainability.

WASHCost End-of-Project meeting held in Accra.

The WASHCost Ghana End-of-Project meeting has been held in Accra. The meeting was also used as a National Seminar on Life Cycle Cost Approach (LCCA) for sustainable costing for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) service delivery. It was under the theme: Costing Sustainable Rural Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Services in Ghana.

WASHCost End-of-Project Evaluation

Year of publication: 2013

WASHCost - a US$ 14.5m, five-year project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and implemented by the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC) - has been a bold, global attempt to gain accurate knowledge on disaggregated water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) costs in rural and peri-urban areas.  

IRC launches WASHCost campaign

The Hague / Accra / Ouagadougou, 23 October 2012: IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre is launching the online WASHCost campaign on the 24th October. WASHCost will promote the life-cycle costs approach which calculates the long-term costs of lasting Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Services.“The Life-cycle costs approach takes into account all cost elements of building and maintaining WASH infrastructure against the services actually received by users over time”, explains WASHCost Director Catarina Fonseca.”The campaign will be launched with an initial focus on sanitation. Every month we will compile the most relevant findings from the country research for an international audience. The campaign will run until March 2013”.

Findings from the WASHcost Ghana research.

This presentation describes the data on costs of providing services, per type of technology and per level of serives delivered both for water and Sanitatio in 31 rural communites and 17 small town. 76 point water sources and 17 small town water systems were studies. The methology and framework for anaylsis is the life cycle approach.

PDF icon 20110127 Nyarko WASHCost research.pdf

‘What you don’t cost, you can’t do’ – Ghana WASH coordinator assesses the impact of WASHCost

“If we did not cost something, it did not get done.” That is the blunt assessment of Charlotte Engmann,  from Ghana’s  Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA ), about life before WASHCost.

WASHCost Ghana engages with a consultant to review Capital Maitenance Expenditure (CapManEx)

WASHCost Ghana is working with a consultant to review existing policies and practices for addressing Capital Maintenance Expenditure of Small Towns Water System

KNUST/ IRC Launches WASHCost Project Ghana, By Abu Wumbei - RCN Secretariat

Following the pre-launch in June, 2008, the WASHCost project Ghana will be formally launched by Hon. Alhaji Abubakari Saddique Boniface, the Minister for Water Resource Works and Housing on Tuesday, September 9th 2008 at Erata Hotel, East Legon - Accra, Ghana.