Analysis
What a water point actually costs to keep running
The build is the cheap part. Here is the ten-year cost breakdown that explains why a third of our WASH budget goes to spare parts and committees.
5 min read
Across the sector, somewhere between a third and half of rural water points are non-functional at any given moment. Almost none of them failed because the drilling was bad. They failed because a gasket wore out and nobody had budgeted for a gasket.
We spend roughly thirty-four percent of the WASH budget on maintenance, spare parts and the local committees that hold the tools. Our five-year functionality rate is eighty-seven percent. Those two numbers are the same fact stated twice.
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