IRC launches WASHCost campaign to link long term service costs to users
IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre launched the online WASHCost campaign on the October 24th. WASHCost will promote the life-cycle costs approach which calculates the long-term costs of lasting water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services.
Including investments and maintenance
"The Life-cycle costs approach takes into account all cost elements of building and maintaining WASH infrastructure against the services actually received by users over time", explains WASHCost director Catarina Fonseca."The campaign will be launched with an initial focus on sanitation. Every month we will compile the most relevant findings from the country research for an international audience. The campaign will run until March 2013".
The IRC’s WASHCost campaign will look at four topics during these coming months:
- the first month of the campaign will run from 24 October to mid-November. The main theme is 'Costing Sustainable Sanitation Services'
- as of mid-November, the campaign will focus on “Water services” up until the end of December
- in early 2013, the campaign will focus on the uptake of LCCA by organisations and in countries
- and in its last month the campaign will focus on hygiene findings
Linking costs of services to users
The campaign aims to get governments, NGOs, donors and interested individuals to use the life-cycle costs approach in policy and planning processes for sustainable and equitable WASH services by linking the cost with the service delivered to the users.
Experiences in many different countries
"Our WASHCost teams, together with several governmental partners, have been gathering and using information related to the true costs of providing WASH services that last in rural and peri-urban areas of Burkina Faso, Ghana, India, and Mozambique. WASHCost has embedded the concept of life-cycle costing with donors, national and local governments and NGOs, so that services continue to meet national standards reliably for generation.We would like very much to share those good practices broadly", says Catarina Fonseca.
Go to the WASHCost campaign website: campaign.washcost.info
About IRC
IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre is a knowledge-focused NGO with a vision and a mission. Thew centre works with a worldwide network of partner organisations in order to achieve equitable and sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. IRC’s roots are in advocacy, knowledge management and capacity building.The organisation was founded in 1968.
This news item was originally published on the website of IRC.
More information
IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre
The Hague, the Netherlands
+31 70 304 40 00
www.irc.nl