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TitleCopenhagen consensus 2008 challenge paper : sanitation and water : water and sanitation challenge paper
Publication TypeMiscellaneous
Year of Publication2008
AuthorsWhittington, D, Hanemann, WM, Sadoff, C, Jeuland, M
Pagination139 p. : 16 fig., 31 tab.
Date Published2008-04-28
PublisherCopenhagen Consensus Center
Place PublishedCopenhagen, Denmark
Keywordsaccess to sanitation, access to water, costs, investment, policies, sanitation, sdipol, WASHCost, water costs
Abstract

The 1980s were designated the International Water and Sanitation Decade, and the international community committed itself to ensuring that everyone in the world have access to at least basic water and sanitation services by 1990. This target was not met. While hundreds of millions did receive new access, at the end of the decade well over 1.1 billion people still lacked improved water supplies, and more than 2.7 billion lacked sanitation services. By the year 2000, although another billion people had obtained access to improved water and sanitation services, population growth had left the number of those still unserved at roughly the same absolute level. In 2002, at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, the global community made a new commitment to a set of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), one of which was to cut by half the proportion of people in the world living without access to water and sanitation by 2015. This paper demonstrates the extremely broad range of interventions that can be classified in the ‘water and sanitation’ sector. The breadth of these options, the range of their potential returns, and the strong dependence on the specific circumstances of each project’s design and implementation underscore the fact that there can be no single benefit-cost ratio for water and sanitation. No sectoral-level analysis can replace rigorous, project-level economic analysis. Each water and sanitation investment is unique and must be designed for its specific context and judged on its specific merits. (authors' abstract)

Notes73 ref.
Custom 1202.3, 302.3

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