Jakarta – Poor hygiene and sanitation cost Indonesia's economy more than US$6 billion per year, supporting the need for greater investment in water and sanitation infrastructure, a World Bank report has revealed.
The report, The Economic Impact of Sanitation in Indonesia, was released Tuesday.
"The lack of access to sanitation poses heavy financial and economic costs to the Indonesian economy, not only to individuals but also to the public and commercial sectors," it said.
In 2006 alone, costs stemming from poor hygiene and sanitation reached $6.3 billion, accounting for 2.3 percent of GDP.
The greatest contributors to overall economic losses were health and water resources. The costs took the form of financial losses for those who had to pay for health services, who paid more for access to clean water, or who might have lost income from being absent from work due to poor health.
Poor sanitation also creates at least 120 million incidents of disease and 50,000 premature deaths annually.
The study gave the per capita cost of poor sanitation and hygiene in urban areas as Rp 275,000 ($31.10), higher than that in rural areas, calculated as Rp 224,000.
"However, significantly more people still do not have access to improved sanitation in rural areas," it said.
The World Bank report made an example of the fact that in 2004, sanitation coverage in Indonesia reached 55 percent, below the average of 67 percent for Southeast Asian countries.
Bloomberg, citing the WHO and Unicef, reported that more than a quarter of the Indonesian population defecates in the open, fostering the spread of diseases such as cholera and hepatitis.
As part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the global community aims to halve the proportion of people without access to adequate sanitation by 2015.
Indonesia has made progress toward that target, "but at current trends, the country will fall short by 10 percent, or 25 million people," said Guy Hutton, a senior economist for the program and author of the report.
The study was organized by the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Program, which aims to alleviate poverty by helping poor people gain sustained access to improved water and sanitation services.
"Basic water and sanitation services are vital to human life, and in this day and age, no one should be without such basic dignities," said World Bank water sector manager Abel Mejia.
"This report attests to the fact that although there has been progress, much remains to be done to stop these preventable deaths and spread of disease."