Economic impacts of sanitation in the Philippines - summary : a five-country study conducted in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, the Philippines and Vietnam under the Economics of Sanitation Initiative (ESI)

About 20 million Filipinos, more than a quarter of the Philippine population, were exposed to poor sanitation in 2004. Moreover, with an average population growth of more than 2% per annum, an additional 2 million people will require adequate and clean sanitation facilities each year. These facts raise serious concerns because poor sanitation has a wide variety of negative impacts. Sanitation is often a neglected aspect of development in developing countries. This in part explains the lack of reliable data and research to verify the significant burden imposed by poor sanitation on society. This impact study attempts to address these shortcomings by conducting a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the impacts of poor sanitation on health, water, other welfare indicators, and tourism. A standardized peer-reviewed methodology is employed. Th methodology is also adopted in four other countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam) in view of generating comparable outputs for Southeast Asia.
The analysis interprets sanitation as activities that are related to human excreta, with some instances in which sanitation relates to gray water and solid waste. The study relies on evidence from secondary sources and is hence limited in the scope of impacts examined. The study presents facts and figures and argues that poor sanitation has significant economic costs. It claims that improvements in the sanitation sector will not only result in economic savings but will also lead to gains that go beyond the simple mitigation of the costs, such as the value of human excreta used for fertilizer.