Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Africa Water, Sanitation May -June 2014 Vol.9 No.3 | Page 18

Sanitation

Inadequate Sanitation Costs 18 African
Countries around US$5.5 Billion Each Year
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These countries account for 554 million people,
which is more than half of Africa’s population.
The annual economic losses due to poor
sanitation are equivalent to between 1% and
2.5% of GDP.

The true cost could be much higher: this
analysis only deals with losses due to
premature deaths, healthcare costs, losses in
productivity, and time lost through the practice
of open defecation.

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• Other adverse impacts of inadequate sanitation
likely to be significant, but difficult and
expensive to estimate, include the costs of
epidemic outbreaks; losses in trade and
tourism revenue; impact of unsafe excreta
disposal on water resources; and the long term effects of poor sanitation on early
childhood development.
Eighteen African countries
lose around US$5.5 billion
every year due to poor
sanitation, with annual
economic losses between
1% and 2.5% of GDP,
says a new report by the
World Bank’s Water and
Sanitation Program (WSP).
The study covered Benin,
Burkina Faso, Chad, Central African Republic, Democratic
Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Republic of Congo,
Liberia, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger,
Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
The desk study, Economic Impacts of Poor Sanitation in Africa,
found the majority of these costs come from annual
premature deaths, including of children under the age
of 5, due to diarrheal disease. Nearly 90 percent of these
deaths are directly attributable to poor water, sanitation,
and hygiene.
Other significant costs were from productivity losses,
and time lost through the practice of open defecation.
Other adverse impacts of inadequate sanitation likely
to be significant, but difficult and expensive to estimate,
include the costs of epidemic outbreaks; losses in trade
and tourism revenue; impact of unsafe excreta disposal
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Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene • June