Title: Providing clean water to rural villages: a cost-effectiveness analysis of boreholes versus purification sachets

Authors: Anna-Maria Aksan; Kaitlyn Aussenheimer; Margaret Williams

Addresses: Department of Economics, Fairfield University, 359 DSBN, Fairfield, CT 06824-5195, USA ' Deloitte, 30 Rockefeller Plaza 41st Floor, New York, NY 10112, USA ' Deloitte, Harborside Plaza 10, 32nd St., Suite 400, Jersey City, NJ 07302, USA

Abstract: Clean, reliable water access remains a challenge in rural communities throughout the developing world. A number of alternatives are available for combating infrastructure shortfalls, ranging from water purification methods to infrastructure developments such as drilling of boreholes. We apply economic valuation methods to compare two such options for providing clean water to rural communities in various countries. Cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses demonstrate the benefits relative to the costs of providing clean water by drilling boreholes versus using water purification sachets. We compare short-run and long-run costs and value the health benefits of clean water to demonstrate a lower incremental cost effectiveness ratio for boreholes. We also value the difference in time spent collecting water and calculate the internal rate of return for borehole installation. The social return on investing in boreholes is high across all settings analysed.

Keywords: economic valuation; water access; quality adjusted life year; cost-benefit; cost-effectiveness; incremental cost effectiveness ratio; ICER; internal rate of return; IRR.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSEI.2022.128564

International Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2022 Vol.6 No.2, pp.111 - 125

Received: 04 Dec 2021
Accepted: 12 Jan 2022
Published online: 26 Jan 2023 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article