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Economic assessments of small-scale drinking-water interventions in pursuit of MDG target 7C

  • John Cameron
  • , Paul Jagals
  • , Paul R. Hunter
  • , Steve Pedley
  • , Katherine Pond*
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper uses an applied rural case study of a safer water intervention in South Africa to illustrate how three levels of economic assessment can be used to understand the impact of the intervention on people's well-being. It is set in the context of Millennium Development Goal 7 which sets a target (7C) for safe drinking-water provision and the challenges of reaching people in remote rural areas with relatively small-scale schemes. The assessment moves from cost efficiency to cost effectiveness to a full social cost-benefit analysis (SCBA) with an associated sensitivity test. In addition to demonstrating techniques of analysis, the paper brings out many of the challenges in understanding how safer drinking-water impacts on people's livelihoods. The SCBA shows the case study intervention is justified economically, though the sensitivity test suggests 'downside' vulnerability.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)8-15
Number of pages8
JournalScience of the Total Environment, The
Volume410-411
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2011
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
One of us (M.E. Gusakov) is grateful to D.G. Yakovlev and A.D. Kaminker for helpful discussions and attention to the work. T his study was supported in part by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project nos. 02-02-17668 and 00-07-90183).

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

  1. SDG 6 - Clean Water and Sanitation
    SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation

Keywords

  • Economic assessment
  • Rural water supplies
  • Safer drinking-water
  • Social cost-benefit analysis
  • South Africa

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