Economics of Sanitation.

Byline: Ms. Jaehyang So

Every year in mid-August, the world's leading water experts gather to focus on one subject that preoccupies the international community.

This year, the Stockholm International Water Institute is hosting those experts in World Water Week as they turn their attention to the under-appreciated yet critical development issue of sanitation.

Society has developed an acceptable, however inexact, vocabulary to describe the toilet. "Restroom," "loo," "water closet," "the facilities"-they all describe what the United Nations and the development community refer to as "improved sanitation," another, more pleasant phrase used to describe access to something resembling a latrine.

The appalling fact, …