Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene 2014 Sept - Oct Vol. 9 No.5 | Page 40

Publications
Priceless! Uncovering the real costs of water and
sanitation
This WASHCost e-book
will be available for free
download on IRCWASH from
September 2014.
Priceless! describes the
journey we took with partners
worldwide in our first multimillion dollar and multicountry initiative, WASHCost.
“Many developing countries
show enormous effort and
commitment to ensure that
their citizens gain access to the
basic necessities of life - and nothing is more fundamental
than clean water and hygienic sanitation. But their efforts
are constrained by lack of basic information and the
absence of systems to monitor the quality of services. ...
This book describes how the IRC-led project worked in
four countries, with government and local organizations,
to uncover the real costs of sustainable and acceptable
services, and how [together, the team] attempted to ensure
that countries would never again have to work in ignorance
of some of the basic facts of economic life
The official launch was in Stockholm, Sweden during the
2014 Stockholm World Water Week.
Free copies will also be handed out in the following
venues:
Hanoi, Vietnam – 15 till 19 September during the 37th
WEDC International Conference: Sustainable Water and
Sanitation Service for All in a Fast Changing World.
Dakar, Senegal – 8 till 10 October during AfricaSan 4.
Innovative communal sanitation models for the
urban poor: Lessons from Uganda, 2014
Authors: Greg Bachmayer, Noah Shermbrucker.
This paper describes the construction and management
processes related to two toilet blocks in Uganda, one
in Jinja and one in Kampala. Designs, financial models
and insights into the process and challenges faced are
presented and reflected on. Discussions about scaling up
sanitation provision through these models are also tabled.
To strengthen their planning processes, the Ugandan
federation sought to draw on other community driven
processes in India and Malawi. With divergent contexts,
especially in terms of density, lessons were adapted to local
conditions.
Through unpacking these experiences the paper draws
attention to a number of key points. Firstly it argues that
organised communities have the potential to develop
functional and sustainable