Africa : economics of sanitation initiative

Traditionally, sanitation has not received the priority it deserves. It has not been widely recognized how good sanitation policies and practices can underpin socio-economic development and environmental protection. This study provides an estimation of economic impacts on populations without access to improved sanitation in order to provide information on the losses to society of the current sanitation situation. While not all these economic impacts can be immediately recovered from improved sanitation practices, it provides a perspective on the short- and longer-term economic gains that are available to countries through a range of policies to mitigate these impacts. Underlying data sets to estimate economic impacts are weak; the study therefore uses objectively verified data sources and conservative numbers to estimate economic impacts. Several impacts have been excluded due to lack of data. Therefore the total costs of poor sanitation reported are likely to significant underestimate the true costs. With the key-findings of each country separate. [authors abstract]