The Challenge of Improving Water and Sanitation Services in Less Developed Countries

This paper argues that there are many challenges to designing and implementing water and sanitation interventions that actually deliver economic benefits to the households in developing countries. Perhaps most critical to successful water and sanitation investments is to discover and implement forms...

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Main Authors:	Whittington, Dale, Hanemann, W. Michael, Sadoff, Claudia, Jeuland, Marc
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	EN
Published:	2012
Subjects:	Economic Development: Agriculture Natural Resources Energy Environment Other Primary Products O130 Technological Change: Choices and Consequences Diffusion Processes O330 Land Ownership and Tenure Land Reform Land Use Irrigation Agriculture and Environment Q150 Renewable Resources and Conservation: Water Q250 Air Pollution Water Pollution Noise Hazardous Waste Solid Waste Recycling Q530
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5019

id	okr-10986-5019
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-50192021-04-23T14:02:20Z The Challenge of Improving Water and Sanitation Services in Less Developed Countries Whittington, Dale Hanemann, W. Michael Sadoff, Claudia Jeuland, Marc Economic Development: Agriculture Natural Resources Energy Environment Other Primary Products O130 Technological Change: Choices and Consequences Diffusion Processes O330 Land Ownership and Tenure Land Reform Land Use Irrigation Agriculture and Environment Q150 Renewable Resources and Conservation: Water Q250 Air Pollution Water Pollution Noise Hazardous Waste Solid Waste Recycling Q530 This paper argues that there are many challenges to designing and implementing water and sanitation interventions that actually deliver economic benefits to the households in developing countries. Perhaps most critical to successful water and sanitation investments is to discover and implement forms of service and payment mechanisms that will render the improvements worthwhile for those who must pay for them. In this paper, we argue that, in many cases, the conventional network technologies of water supply and sanitation will fail this test, and that poor households need alternative, non-network technologies. However, it will not necessarily be the case that specific non-network improved water supply and/or sanitation technologies will always be seen as worthwhile by those who must pay for them. We argue that there is no easy panacea to resolve this situation. For any intervention, the outcome is likely to be context-dependent. An intervention that works well in one locality may fail miserably in another. For any given technology, the outcome will depend on economic and social conditions, including how it is implemented, by whom, and often on the extent to which complementary behavioral, institutional and organizational changes also occur. For this reason, we warn against excessive generalization: one cannot, in our view, say that one intervention yields a rate of return of x% while another yields a return of y%, because the economic returns are likely to vary with local circumstances. More important is to identify the circumstances under which an intervention is more or less likely to succeed. Also for this reason, when we analyze a few selected water and sanitation interventions, we employ a probabilistic rather than a deterministic analysis to emphasize that real world outcomes are likely to vary substantially. 2012-03-30T07:30:52Z 2012-03-30T07:30:52Z 2008 Journal Article Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics 15479846 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5019 EN http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Journal Article
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	EN
topic	Economic Development: Agriculture Natural Resources Energy Environment Other Primary Products O130 Technological Change: Choices and Consequences Diffusion Processes O330 Land Ownership and Tenure Land Reform Land Use Irrigation Agriculture and Environment Q150 Renewable Resources and Conservation: Water Q250 Air Pollution Water Pollution Noise Hazardous Waste Solid Waste Recycling Q530
spellingShingle	Economic Development: Agriculture Natural Resources Energy Environment Other Primary Products O130 Technological Change: Choices and Consequences Diffusion Processes O330 Land Ownership and Tenure Land Reform Land Use Irrigation Agriculture and Environment Q150 Renewable Resources and Conservation: Water Q250 Air Pollution Water Pollution Noise Hazardous Waste Solid Waste Recycling Q530 Whittington, Dale Hanemann, W. Michael Sadoff, Claudia Jeuland, Marc The Challenge of Improving Water and Sanitation Services in Less Developed Countries
relation	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo
description	This paper argues that there are many challenges to designing and implementing water and sanitation interventions that actually deliver economic benefits to the households in developing countries. Perhaps most critical to successful water and sanitation investments is to discover and implement forms of service and payment mechanisms that will render the improvements worthwhile for those who must pay for them. In this paper, we argue that, in many cases, the conventional network technologies of water supply and sanitation will fail this test, and that poor households need alternative, non-network technologies. However, it will not necessarily be the case that specific non-network improved water supply and/or sanitation technologies will always be seen as worthwhile by those who must pay for them. We argue that there is no easy panacea to resolve this situation. For any intervention, the outcome is likely to be context-dependent. An intervention that works well in one locality may fail miserably in another. For any given technology, the outcome will depend on economic and social conditions, including how it is implemented, by whom, and often on the extent to which complementary behavioral, institutional and organizational changes also occur. For this reason, we warn against excessive generalization: one cannot, in our view, say that one intervention yields a rate of return of x% while another yields a return of y%, because the economic returns are likely to vary with local circumstances. More important is to identify the circumstances under which an intervention is more or less likely to succeed. Also for this reason, when we analyze a few selected water and sanitation interventions, we employ a probabilistic rather than a deterministic analysis to emphasize that real world outcomes are likely to vary substantially.
format	Journal Article
author	Whittington, Dale Hanemann, W. Michael Sadoff, Claudia Jeuland, Marc
author_facet	Whittington, Dale Hanemann, W. Michael Sadoff, Claudia Jeuland, Marc
author_sort	Whittington, Dale
title	The Challenge of Improving Water and Sanitation Services in Less Developed Countries
title_short	The Challenge of Improving Water and Sanitation Services in Less Developed Countries
title_full	The Challenge of Improving Water and Sanitation Services in Less Developed Countries
title_fullStr	The Challenge of Improving Water and Sanitation Services in Less Developed Countries
title_full_unstemmed	The Challenge of Improving Water and Sanitation Services in Less Developed Countries
title_sort	challenge of improving water and sanitation services in less developed countries
publishDate	2012
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5019
_version_	1764393622698983424

The Challenge of Improving Water and Sanitation Services in Less Developed Countries

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