WHO Guide to Understanding Costs and Benefits of Water Interventions

OPPORTUNITY TO COMMENT

The World Health Organization (WHO) commissioned the preparation of a manuscript on Social Cost-benefit Analysis of Water Interventions from a Consortium consisting of the University of Johannesburg (South Africa), the University of Surrey and the University of East Anglia (both UK). The Consortium has submitted its final manuscript in twelve chapters.

The manuscript will be published in the course of 2008 under the title: “Valuing water – valuing well-being: a guide to understanding the costs and benefits of water interventions.”

At this stage WHO invites reviewers to provide comments, observations and suggestions either on the entire manuscript or on individual chapters. The review should address one or more of the following points:

• the technical soundness and accuracy of the chapters with respect to drinking-water issues in general and with special reference to small drinking-water systems;
• the accessibility and relevance of the chapters dealing with economic assessment, for an audience of non-economists, considering that this is intended to be a guide to a better understanding of the potential and of the practical application of social cost benefit analyses of small water systems in both developing and developed countries;
• the relevance of the manuscript, considering its objective to assist in analysing livelihoods, with health being a primary but not the only component, through social cost benefit analyses that are detailed in terms of cost estimates, benefit estimates and the economic rate of returns calculated on the basis of both;
• the correctness of objectives defined for each chapter, whether the chapter contents conform to those objectives and whether the chapters are presented in a logical sequence that makes the case for social cost-benefit analysis of drinking-water options; and
• consistency in the message and terminology with minimum duplication or overlap; clear and valid references; adequate cross-referencing between chapters.

How to submit comments

Any comments you may wish to submit, either on individual chapters or on the integral manuscript, should be sent by e-mail to Robert BOS (WHO, Geneva) no later than 31 March 2008, in an essay format with clear reference for each individual comment to chapter number(s), page number and line number(s).

Only responses that come with the full coordinates of the reviewer will be taken into consideration.

Download chapter(s) for comment