Assessing Value for Money of WASH services in small towns : establishing a framework for analysis of ONEWASH Plus Programme interventions

This learning note is based on a Value for Money analysis that focused on capturing all the costs from all sources of finance for constructing water and sanitation systems and maintaining services in eight small towns and surrounding villages in Ethiopia, which are part of the ONEWASH Plus programme. It also compared results with other similar programmes and their costs and an in-depth analysis of procurement processes and other factors that might influence efficiency and sustainability.

The main findings from the analysis are:

• If we consider only the Capital Expenditure of the small town programmes, there is some convergence around an average cost of US$ 100 per person. This excludes critical costs to ensure sustainability such as capital maintenance and direct support expenditure.
• The ONEWASH Plus programme is the only programme, so far, for which information is available on direct and indirect costs which are essential for post-construction and sustainability of the services provided. These costs total about US$ 26 per person.
• It’s impossible to understand if the costs of investment are delivering services that match the national norms on access to water and sanitation. None of the cost documents provide an assessment or evaluation of the level of service provided.
• The costs from the different studies cannot be considered benchmarks as they are indicative only and not directly comparable.