Researchers uncover true cost of poor sewerage
Researchers at the University of Greenwich have shown that the lives of thousands of children could be saved if developing countries invest more in sewers.
David Hall and Emanuele Lobina at the university’s Business School show that international donors and financial institutions have put too much emphasis on low-cost solutions like septic tanks and cesspits, and have put pressure on governments to make poor householders pay the cost of connection to sewerage systems.
David Hall says: “About two million children die every year from cholera and diarrhoeal diseases which appear when sanitation is poor. We estimate that 326,000 of these could be saved just by proper sewers.
“All existing urban sewerage systems in high-income countries – in Europe, North America and Japan – were developed through taxation and the public sector, not through user charges paid to private operators. In 19th century Europe, governments realised water-borne diseases could only be eradicated by public investment and compulsory connection to sewers.”
The research was commissioned by UNISON, the UK’s largest public service trade union, and Public Services International, the global federation for public sector trade unions. It appears in a report called Sewerage works: public investment in sewers saves lives.
It argues that the seventh Millennium Development Goal sanitation target is too modest:
- it fails to give adequate importance to the enormous public health benefits of sewerage connections by simplistically calling for ‘improved sanitation’ and stressing ‘lowest-cost solutions’
- more cesspits, septic tanks and latrines are being built as a result of the goal, but due to leakage and contamination, they can never provide the same benefits as sewers
- South East Asia is considered ‘on track’ to meet the sanitation target but only nine percent of urban households have sewer connections
- even if the sanitation goal is met, an estimated 76 million people will die by 2020 of preventable water-related diseases.
David Hall says: “The amount the British government paid to help troubled bank Northern Rock would alone cover half the total global needs for sewers. Universal coverage is doable and affordable. Cost-benefit analyses prove the economic and public health benefits of investing in sewers far outweigh the costs. For 14 of the 20 countries with the greatest need, urban sewerage connection targets can be achieved at a cost of less than one percent of GDP per annum. Where the cost is above one percent countries may need aid.”
The authors say countries leading the way in building sewers and expanding connections are those such as China, Brazil and India which are most independent of pressures from international financial institutions or donors.
Caption: Aerial view of Jakarta, capital city of Indonesia, where only one percent of houses are connected to a sewer. The city’s million septic tanks have polluted 70 percent of the groundwater, used by 50 percent of the population for their daily needs.
ENDS
Editors’ notes
David Hall and Emanuele Lobina are part of the Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) in the Business School at the University of Greenwich. For more information go to http://www.psiru.org. The report is Sewerage works: public investment in sewers saves lives, Public Services International Research Unit, by David Hall and Emanuele Lobina, 2008 (PDF)
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