Water's worth

Hours of water collection take their toll on children's educations.

June 2008

WaterAid believes that access to safe water and sanitation underpins health, education and livelihoods, and forms the first, essential step in overcoming poverty.

By browsing through this website you'll find hundreds of examples of the positive impacts of water and sanitation improvements.

However, it's difficult to translate anecdotal evidence into cold, hard figures that prove just how effective these basic services are in tackling poverty. 

But in a country such as Madagascar where only half the population has safe water, and two in three people live without access to a latrine, there is an urgent need to convince the government and donors of the huge potential returns that could be gained by boosting investment in the water and sanitation sector. 

That's why WaterAid America has collaborated with Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) to develop a model that can valuate the economic and social impacts of the improvements WaterAid Madagascar has helped communities to make to their water and sanitation services.

Earlier this year SIPA researchers visited communities living with and without access to water and sanitation in villages in Madagascar.  They developed indicators that could be used to quantify the impact of water and sanitation improvements on seven crucial aspects of people's lives:

• Income and livelihoods - when water access and reliability is improved, communities can increase the variety and crop production potential by improving small-scale irrigation of household gardens. It also creates better conditions for care-taking of livestock. The impact can be measured by looking at household savings, monetary value of crops produced, and capital assets such as livestock.

• Increased availability of water leads to improved nutrittion.

  Health - safe water and effective sanitation reduce the number of cases of and deaths from diarrhoea, and improve diets. Proximity of water sources increases the ability to grow vegetables and rear animals. Health impacts can be measured by calculating the reduction in healthcare expenditure, assessing the percentage of people who have improved their hygiene behavior and measuring the number of households of the community who meet the minimum weekly requirements in terms of proteins.
• Education - when water sources are close and diarrhoeal diseases reduced, children have more time for school. This can be measured by absenteeism rates, school enrollment rates, school completion rates and the value of increased lifetime expected income due to increased education levels.
• Gender-related issues / time savings - the time saved from water collection by women can be channelled into other activities such as farming, as can be measured by calculating the hours saved and the potential amount of income generated thanks to time saving.
• Community management - participation in water and sanitation projects helps communities to develop their management and governance structures, as can be measured by satisfaction with water committees' activities and participation rates in meetings. It can also be seen in later projects organised and encouraged by the water committees. The team identified this indicator as one with signficant potential for future studies.
• Psychological impacts - proximity of water sources reduces the stress associated with long, risky water walks and a water point can increase the social status of a community. Increased hygiene and cleanliness of the village was noticed, specifically in several community driven beautification projects where they planted and watered new flower gardens in the village. While no specific indicators were assigned to psychological impacts, this was noted as an important area for future study.
• Environmental sustainability - well planned water projects can benefit the environments through measures such as groundwater recharge and building awareness of how individual actions impact the quality and quantity of the new water sources. This area was flagged for further development in future iterations of the model.

Increased household wealth means people are able to buy more livestock.

SIPA applied the model on a test basis to two communities living with and without water and sanitation in Madagascar. While the number of households examined was not large enough to be statistically significant, the initial findings supported the hyphothesis of improvements in each the aspects listed above in the village with water and sanitation.

The next steps are for WaterAid Madagascar to apply the model on a wider basis and document their findings.

The research project and valuation model is documented in full in the SIPA report WaterAid Madagascar: Valuating Economic and Social Impacts of Improved Water and Sanitation Services.  
Download a copy here ( PDF 2 MB)