Economic and financial aspects of the sanitation challenge: A practitioner approach

This paper examines some economic and financial aspects of the sanitation challenge. It first reviews studies on the economic benefits of sanitation and compares it with an analysis of the average economic rate of returns of financed sanitation projects. It then discusses why sanitation projects are usually not financially viable and the importance of financial sustainability. The paper concludes that the real financial challenge of universal access to basic sanitation resides more in the lack of financial sustainability at the sector level than in the total investment required to reach the target.