How to cost universal

coverage at district level?

Using paper and
calculator
The Hague, 19th June 2018

Supporting water sanitation

and hygiene services for life
How to cost universal
coverage at district level?
Using paper and
calculator (mostly)
The Hague, 19th June 2018

Supporting water sanitation

and hygiene services for life
Who is this “tool” for?
For anyone supporting governments setting up
monitoring systems
For anyone applying the IRC Approach across
programmes and projects
For anyone working with asset registry and asset
management at district level
For anyone costing the district master plans
What does it give you?
Required expenditure to reach water coverage by
2030
But…. much more than a costing exercise

- District and utility staff understanding their own budgets and

expenditures and identifying the blockages
- District staff being able to talk with politically elected
officials
- District and NGO staff getting to terms with the financing gap
and start discussing how to address it – in very real terms

=> A system that is being observed is a system that changes

The method?

(to be done properly about 4 full days with a local team)

From asset registry to asset budgeting: assumptions

- Its assumed that the standard data collection for asset registry
has been done and the data is cleaned and ready for analysis
- Participants understand in detail each of the life-cycle costs
- Participants have most of the cost information needed with
them: salary sheets, infrastructure costs, per diem rules, etc.
- Participants have a basic level of math
A) Listing names of schemes and main components of existing
infrastructure
- .
B) Fill in risk based on current condition and based on age => taken from
asset registry
- .
C) Define the level priority for maintenance or rehabilitation for the
“obvious ones”
- .
D) Define what is the most important indicator of service (i.e. urban =>
continuity; rural => quantity but can also be population or scarcity)
- .
E) Complete prioritisation for maintenance
- .
F) Select the high priority, then medium, then low
- .
G) Detailed costing for high priority
- .

= 173.000€ in one small town while whole budget for the zone for CapEx =
534.000€ of which 157.000€ were spend and remaining had to be returned to the
Region and for CapManEx budget is 5.000€ and was all spend.

First time utility seen or made explicit the costs of maintenance.

First time zone understands imbalance in budget requirements.
H) Make decisions on what year do you include capital maintenance of
existing infrastructure
- .
I) Estimate maintenance requirements for remaining years

J) Estimate Capex and CapManEx for NEW infrastructure (separate exercise)

K) Estimate Direct support for follow up (separate exercise)

This is where Excel is needed… Big Jump to…

L) Bringing all the costs and sources of finance together per year
Putting is all together: pop, costs and financing
Graphic display: Asufiti master plan
Graphic display: tool for MWA, Ethiopia (draft)
Graphic display: we are still missing the financing
side of the story
0 0 0 0 00 00 00
Actual 0 0 revenue and
00 expenditure
00 ,0
0
0,
0
0,
0
0,
0
0 0, 2 0, 4 0, 6 80 10 12 14
T T T T T T T T
BD BD BD BD BD BD BD BD

Actual Annual Revenue

Actual Annual Expenditure

Total annual contribution by users (i.e.tariffs and other user contributions e.g. for minor maintenance)
Interest rate charged if loans are given out
Revenue from taxes levied at the national level
Revenue from taxes levied at the local level
Revenue from transfers (e.g. payments from development organisations)
Other sources of national revenue
Other sources of local revenue

Total annual direct support expenditure for whole district:

Total annual Capital Expenditure (CapEx)
Total annual Operating and Minor Maintenance Expenditure (OpEx)
Total annual Capital Maintenance Expenditure (CapManEx)
What you should not be doing and the risks that
come with it

Life cycle costing starts with understanding the assets. Use the real information that
from the asset registry. Using broad cost estimates for the district master plans
(without the asset registry) can be done, but then don’t use it for detailed year by
year planning at district level => it will invariably lead to underestimation of costs

Using only functioning/non functioning infrastructure for the calculations => will
lead to severe underestimation. The largest costs come from fixing partially
functioning infrastructure, every year.

Using design lifespans => will lead to severe underestimation. At least cut them by
half. Design lifespans assume that minor maintenance and preventive maintenance
are being done regularly which is not the case in most of the areas we work in
Asufiti master plan
What do you HAVE to do once preliminary costing
data emerges?
Prepare three key messages and go discuss it with
the politically elected => get the next appointment
Visiting address
Bezuidenhoutseweg 2
2594 AV The Hague

Thank you
The Netherlands
Postal address
P.O. BOX 82327
2508 EH The Hague
The Netherlands
T +31 70 3044000
info@ircwash.org
www.ircwash.org

Supporting water sanitation

and hygiene services for life