Benefits of Investing in Water and Sanitation
An OECD Perspective
The provision of water supply, sanitation and wastewater services generates substantial benefits for public health, the economy and the environment. Benefit-to-cost ratios can be as high as 7 to 1 for basic water and sanitation services in developing countries.
Wastewater treatment interventions, for example, generate significant benefits for public health, the environment and for certain economic sectors such as fisheries, tourism and property markets.
The full magnitude of the benefits of water services is seldom considered for a number of reasons, including the difficulty in quantifying important non-economic benefits such as non-use values, dignity, social status, cleanliness and overall well-being. Also, information about the benefits of water services is usually hidden in the technical literature, where it remains invisible to key decision-makers in ministries.
This report draws together and summarises existing information on the benefits of water and sanitation.
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Setting the stage
This Chapter provides some background on the size of the investment challenge for water and sanitation and identifies where benefits are likely to emerge from investment along the value chain of water and sanitation services. Potential types of benefits include health, environmental and economic benefits, as well as benefits that are more difficult to quantify, such as dignity and well-being. Annex A provides an overall methodological framework for evaluating such benefits.
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