The costs of meeting the SDG WASHtargets will be several times higher than investment levelsduring the MDG era (2000–15). The immense scale of thefinancing gap calls for innovative solutions. In addition tomobilizing more funding another approach is to deliver theneeded infrastructure more efficiently and effectively andthus reduce the financing gap. Capital expenditureefficiency (CEE)—the efficient and effective use ofcapital—is less documented compared to operationalefficiency. Although improving operating efficiency isfrequently highlighted and readily evaluated, the scope forcapital cost efficiencies is poorly understood, frequentlyoverlooked, and difficult to evaluate, even though the scaleof savings can be significant—in fact, capital and operatingcosts are equally important when considering full costrecovery. This study compiles case studies that show the"art of the possible" in CEE. The reportis not encyclopedic—many more examples could surface from acomprehensive study. It also doesn’t quantify the savingspossible through increasing CEE. However, almost all theexamples show capital savings of 25 percent or more comparedto traditional solutions. This alone this should give policymakers, donors, and utility managers pause for thought andencourage them to develop CEE in their sectors, projects, orutilities. A 25 percent improvement in CEE would allowexisting investments to deliver a 33 percent increase in benefits.
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