Introduction and Step-by Step guide to Conducting a Life Cycle Costing Assessment for Water Supply Services

Life cycle costs are ALL the costs necessary for delivering and more importantly SUSTAINING water, sanitation services and hygiene behaviours to a specific population. Life cycle costs include not only the initial, often one-off costs of installing new infrastructure, but also the short and long-term costs of maintaining these services long into the future and the costs for providing support to the service provision. These include for example spare parts for minor and major maintenance or replacement, water officer/technician salaries, local area mechanics, recurrent technical training of national and sub-national water and health staff, repeat sanitation and hygiene promotion, ongoing monitoring, sub-national and national-level planning and budgeting processes.