A recent World Bank/Water and Sanitation Program initiative on the economics of sanitation in 18 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa found that:
Inadequate sanitation costs [these] 18 African countries around US$5.5 billion each year [around 1−2.5% of GDP].
Open defecation alone accounts for almost US$2 billion of these annual losses in the[se] 18 countries. Lacking alternatives, more than 114 million people still defecate in the open in the 18 countries surveyed − this is about half the number of people on the continent and almost 24% of the total population in the countries surveyed. Eliminating the practice of open defecation in these countries would require about 23 million toilets to be built and used.
Each of the 18 countries has its own report (downloadable here). Fairly grim reading – but, of course, unfortunately what we're used to. Will sanitation ever get the real priority it deserves?
About Me
- Duncan Mara
- University of Leeds, United Kingdom
- I'm an emeritus professor of civil engineering at the University of Leeds in England. I've been working on low-cost sanitation in developing countries since the mid-1970s, and also on low-cost wastewater treatment and reuse. I was a lecturer at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, 1970-73 and then a senior lecturer at the University of Dundee, Scotland, 1974-79 before moving to Leeds in late 1979. I was a visiting professor of sanitary engineering at the Universidade Federal da Paraiba in Campina Grande, northeast Brazil, during 1976-95, and since 1996 I have been a visiting professor of environmental engineering at the Instituto Cinara, Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia.