| More than 2 billion people in developing countries are still without access to hygienic sanitation. The lack of hygienic sanitation takes a large toll on developing countries' economic progress and individual's well-being through poor-health conditions among people. Many government and development agencies tried to install toilets in poor communities during the 1980s and 1990s. Most projects failed. Several billions of dollars were wasted; communities did not use the installed toilets; and disease prevalence did not decrease. Frustrated agencies soon cut funding for projects.; The thesis analyses reasons for past project failures and includes findings in a decision support model, which identifies a suite of toilets that imposes low costs on the agency while meeting societal requirements and environmental integrity. The model explicitly accounts for materials, skill and O&M availability in the community, prevalent hydrogeological and climatic conditions in the region, and people's preferences and willingness-to-pay for sanitation services.; The environmental performance indicator, effective number of polluting households, formulated in this thesis adequately mimics the true environmental impact of sanitation projects. When past project policies are imposed through constraints, the model illustrates high agency costs and high environmental impacts. Agency costs and environmental impact are greatly reduced when different income groups are allowed to install different types of toilets, community expectations and preferences are included through their willingness-to-pay cash and contribute labor and materials, and the sanitation project is preceded by an education outreach program. Costs and environmental impacts presented here are for a small pilot community of 80 households; still savings to agency and beneficial impact on community are significant. If this approach were used in a real and full-scale sanitation project, savings to project implementing agency would be very large. Investigations made using the model allows the agency to determine where it could potentially be on the cost-pollution space when different amounts of money are available, and how best it should allocate funds for the primary spending areas.; These approaches conform to the framework conceived in the VISION 21 by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC, 2000). The thesis and model formulation show means of implementing the recommendations, and methods for investigating the relative merits of different project-related policies. |
