A Systematic Review: Costing and Financing of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) in Schools.

Shannon Mcginnis,Richa Desai,Stanley Laskowski,Thomas Mckeon,Heather Murphy,Akudo Ejelonu

doi:10.3390/ijerph14040442

Abstract

Despite the success of recent efforts to increase access to improved water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) globally, approximately one-third of schools around the world still lack adequate WASH services. A lack of WASH in schools can lead to the spread of preventable disease and increase school absences, especially among women. Inadequate financing and budgeting has been named as a key barrier for integrating successful and sustainable WASH programs into school settings. For this reason, the purpose of this review is to describe the current knowledge around the costs of WASH components as well as financing models that could be applied to WASH in schools. Results show a lack of information around WASH costing, particularly around software elements as well as a lack of data overall for WASH in school settings as compared to community WASH. This review also identifies several key considerations when designing WASH budgets or selecting financing mechanisms. Findings may be used to advise future WASH in school programs.

Highlights

It has been estimated that 10% of the total global burden of disease could be prevented by improvements to water supply, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) [1]
These results show a lack of published information around WASH in schools as compared to community WASH
Our search found a lack of WASH costing data overall and identified large gaps in the available costing data for hygiene infrastructure and software programming

Summary

Introduction

It has been estimated that 10% of the total global burden of disease could be prevented by improvements to water supply, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) [1]. Improved WASH can have economic benefits through reducing medical treatment costs, preventing death, and increasing productivity [1] Despite these advantages, in many countries around the world, a lack of finances, water quality standards, accountability, management, and a low prioritization of WASH all contribute to an inability to effectively build and maintain water and sanitation services [2], resulting in millions of preventable illnesses and deaths each year [2,3]. In many countries around the world, a lack of finances, water quality standards, accountability, management, and a low prioritization of WASH all contribute to an inability to effectively build and maintain water and sanitation services [2], resulting in millions of preventable illnesses and deaths each year [2,3] For this reason, this review seeks to improve knowledge around the costs of implementing

Objectives

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Conclusion