Leverage Factor
Consider an all out campaign to provide clean water and sanitation throughout the world.
| Project | Cost | Real world outcome | Outcome estimates | Economic value in Western terms | Leverage Factor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Global clean water and sanitation | $80b | 1.8m children's lives saved/year [1] | 2.6b lack clean water and sanitation and it costs $30/person to provide clean water and sanitation [2]; capitalize over 20 years | $90t | 1,100 |
This ignores other benefits of clean water and sanitation: adult deaths, non-fatal illness, and time saved fetching water. So the actual leverage factor is probably somewhat higher than assessed above.
Leverage Factor
1,500? - 2,000?
We question this result because the number of children's lives saved/yr 1.8m reported by WaterAid for a global campaign doesn't sync with the number of DALYs saved/yr 4.9m reported in Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems (Bjorn Lomborg, 2007, pp. 414) for a Millenium Develpment Goal 7 campaign, which is to halve the number without access to clean water and sanitation by 2015.