UNICEF Pacific spends approximately US$250million annually on WASH infrastructure and programs. They hired Crane Associates to calculatethe Return on Investment from these WASH expenditures. UNICEF’s mission is to: “ensurethat all pacific children and their families, particularly the most vulnerable,are accessing adequate, equitable, affordable drinking water, sanitation andhygiene.” The program provides financialand technical assistance to fourteen nations: Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati,Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa,Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. These countries andterritories are home to 2.45 million people, living on more than 660 islandsand atolls stretching across 17.2 million square kilometers of the PacificOcean. Crane Associates created aninteractive economic model that calculated the economic value of the benefits receivedfor each of these countries. The model measures the benefits through ten uniquebenefits streams: savings to the national medical system; savings in household out-of-pocketcosts; savings in caregiver wages; savings in transportation costs; increased employeewages from avoided illness; increased GDP from avoided illness; increased employeewages from avoided death; increased GDP from avoided death; value of a statisticallife; and savings from avoided purchases in bottled water. The model is built to adjust to the country’sbase data and calculate a unique combination of benefits received by each individualcountry. The work also included a user’s manual and a training workshop. The economicbenefits calculated from this model are forecasted to grow for the life of theinfrastructure (30 years) starting from 2024. All benefits are discounted to a netpresent value in 2024 using a 10 percent discount rate. The model may be adjusted to use otherdiscount rates. The Solomon Islands wasused as a case study to complete and test the model. Results from this study show that for theSolomon Islands, the economic benefits of these investments amount to a NetPresent Value of US$15,000 per person, or an annualized return of 16% everyyear for the 30 life of WASH investments. This compares to WASH expenditures of US$150 per person. While UNICEF Pacificspends US$250million annually for the WASH program in the Solomon Islands, themodel shows that it receives US$3.2billion in annual benefits.
