CACTUS aims to improve the quality of information available to decision makers who seek to make investment decisions relating to urban sanitation provision in cities and towns.  Decisions about investments in sanitation infrastructure and services are complex and driven by a wide range of factors.  CACTUS works on the principle that there is never a single ‘best’ solution to the question of how to provide effective, equitable and sustained sanitation – the decision will be driven by a variable number of factors, and that different cities and towns and indeed different stakeholders in a given city or town, would place different levels of emphasis on different factors. For example some decision makers would place a higher value on the mitigation of environmental impacts compared to financial costs, while others would have different priorities.  CACTUS addresses this problem by generating data on three broad characteristics of different sanitation service delivery options, namely, cost (in the form of greenhouse gas emissions), climate and welfare effects.

Funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.