Economic Assessment of Sanitation Interventions in Vietnam - WSP

Economic Assessment of Sanitation Interventions in Vietnam | Methodsported and dumped in sanitary landfills in the area.4) Solid waste is collected and separated at source orat the treatment plant. Part of the organic waste iscomposted for fertilizer production. The inorganicfraction of the waste in dumped in sanitary landfills.Combustible materials can be incinerated for energyrecovery. Hazardous waste is collected separately,transported and treated.The current study conducted surveys at four sites with solidwaste management projects. The scenario evaluated foreach site is shown in Table 4.TABLE 4: SCENARIO FOR SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENTPROJECTS IN THE SURVEYED SITESSite (identifier)ScenariosBac Giang (U6) 1 g 2Hanoi (U7) 2 g 4Nghe An (U8) 1 g 3Bac Giang (R6) 1 g 2For scenario definitions, refer to Table 3, label D3.2 COSTS AND BENEFITS EVALUATEDSanitation costs serve as the denominator in the calculationsto estimate the cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness ratios.Summary cost measures include total annual and lifetimecosts, cost per household and cost per capita. For financingand planning purposes, this study disaggregates costs foreach sanitation option by capital, program and recurrentcosts; by financial and economic costs 3 ; by financier; andby wealth quintile. The incremental costs of moving up thesanitation ladder are assessed.To maximize the usefulness of economic analysis for diverseaudiences, the benefits of improved sanitation and hygieneare divided into three categories.1. Household direct benefits: are incurred by householdsmaking the sanitation improvement. Theseactual or perceived benefits will drive the decisionby the household to invest in sanitation, and guidechoice of sanitation improvement. These benefitsmay include: health impacts related to householdsanitation and hygiene; local water resource impacts;access time; intangible impacts; house prices; andthe value of human excreta reuse.2. Local level external benefits: are potentially incurredby all households living in the environmentwhere households improve their sanitation. However,some of these benefits may not be substantial until acritical mass of households has improved their sanitation.These benefits may include: health impactsrelated to environmental exposure to pathogens (e.g.water sources, open defecation practices on land); theaesthetics of environmental quality 4 ; and usability oflocal water sources for productive activities. Given thechallenges in designing studies to distinguish householdfrom local external benefits, the quantitativebenefit-cost analysis groups these benefits together.Tentative conclusions are made, based on availableliterature, and on the likely relative proportions ofprivate and external benefits.3. Wider scale external benefits: result from improvedsanitation at the macro-level. They may include improvementsin: water quality for productive uses;tourism; local business impact; and foreign directinvestment. They can either be linked to coverage inspecific areas or zones (e.g. tourist areas or industrialzones), or to the country in general (e.g. the investmentclimate). As well as improved management ofhuman excreta, other contributors to environmentalimprovement such as solid waste management andwastewater treatment are considered.Therefore, this study distinguishes the economic analysisresults between local community impacts where the sanitationand hygiene improvements take place, and nationallevel impacts. Table 5 shows the monetary and non-monetaryimpacts included in the current study.While this study focuses on household sanitation, the importanceof institutional sanitation also needs to be highlighted.For example, improved school sanitation affectsdecisions about children (especially girls) starting or stayingin school to the end of secondary level, and workplace sanitationaffects decisions by the workforce (especially women)to take or continue work with a particular employer. Theseimpacts are incremental over and above the first three outlinedabove. However, these impacts are outside the scopeof this present study.3In essence, financial costs are cash outlays, while economic costs include other inputs such as household labor.4Aesthetic impacts of a degraded environment include unpleasant sights, smells and atmosphere.www.wsp.org13