IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/eurjdr/v25y2013i1p129-153.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Saving a Life-Year and Reaching MDG 4 with Investments in Water and Sanitation: A Cost-Effective Policy?

Author

Listed:
  • Isabel Günther

    (ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.)

  • Günther Fink

    (Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA.)

Abstract

Using household survey data from 40 developing countries, we estimate the mortality impact of improved water and sanitation access. We find that the average mortality reduction achievable by investment in water and sanitation infrastructure is 8 and 22 deaths per 1000 children born for basic and advanced technologies, respectively. These reductions account for 11 per cent (basic technologies) to 32 per cent (advanced technologies) of the gap between current child mortality rates and the 2015 target set in the Millennium Development Goal 4. Our estimates suggest that full household coverage with water and sanitation infrastructure could lead to a reduction of 0.6 to 1.7 million child deaths per year in the developing world. The average cost per life-year saved is about 30 per cent of developing countries’ annual GDPs per capita for high-end technologies and about 80 per cent of annual per capita GDP for basic water and sanitation infrastructure.A partir d’une base de données recueillies dans 40 pays en développement, nous estimons l’impact, sur la mortalité, d’une amélioration de l’accès à l’eau et de la qualité de celle ci. Nous constatons que la réduction moyenne de la mortalité atteignable grâce aux investissements dans des infrastructures d’accès à l’eau et d’assainissement est comprise entre 8 (technologies de base) et 22 décès (technologies avancées) pour 1000 enfants nés. Ces taux de réduction représentent entre 11 per cent (technologies de base) et 32 per cent (technologies avancées) de l’écart entre le taux de mortalité infantile actuel et celui fixé pour 2015 dans l’Objectif 4 du Millénaire pour le Développement. Selon nos estimations, assurer l’accès de tous les ménages aux infrastructures d’eau et d’assainissement permettrait d’éviter entre 0.6 et 1.7 million de décès infantiles par an dans le monde en développement. Le coût moyen par année de vie sauvée est d’environ 30 per cent du PNB annuel par habitant des pays en développement, si des technologies haut de gamme sont adoptées, et d’environ 80 per cent du PNB annuel par habitant si des infrastructures de base sont installées.

Suggested Citation

  • Isabel Günther & Günther Fink, 2013. "Saving a Life-Year and Reaching MDG 4 with Investments in Water and Sanitation: A Cost-Effective Policy?," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 25(1), pages 129-153, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:pal:eurjdr:v:25:y:2013:i:1:p:129-153
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ejdr/journal/v25/n1/pdf/ejdr201224a.pdf
    File Function: Link to full text PDF
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ejdr/journal/v25/n1/full/ejdr201224a.html
    File Function: Link to full text HTML
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:eurjdr:v:25:y:2013:i:1:p:129-153. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.