A community based program promotes sanitation
María Laura Alzúa,
Habiba Djebbari and
Amy J. Pickering
Additional contact information
Amy J. Pickering: CEE - Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University
Working Papers from HAL
Abstract:
Basic sanitation facilities are still lacking in large parts of the developing world, engendering serious environmental health risks. Interventions commonly deliver in-kind or cash subsidies to promote private toilet ownership. In this paper, we assess an intervention that provides information and behavioral incentives to encourage villagers in rural Mali to build and use basic latrines. Using an experimental research design and carefully measured indicators of use, we find a sizeable impact from this intervention: latrine ownership and use almost doubled in intervention villages, and open defecation was reduced by half. Our results partially attribute these effects to increased knowledge about cheap and locally available sanitation solutions. They are also associated with shifts in the social norm governing sanitation. Taken together, our findings, unlike previous evidence from other contexts, suggest that a progressive approach that starts with ending open defecation and targets whole communities at a time can help meet the new Sustainable Development Goal of ending open defecation.
Keywords: sanitation; behavioral change; community-based intervention; social norm (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-01
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-02462885
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)
Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-02462885/document (application/pdf)
Related works:
Journal Article: A Community-Based Program Promotes Sanitation (2020) 
Working Paper: A community based program promotes sanitation (2020) 
Working Paper: A Community Based Program Promotes Sanitation (2020)
Working Paper: A community based program promotes sanitation (2018) 
Working Paper: A Community Based Program Promotes Sanitation (2018) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-02462885
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD (hal@ccsd.cnrs.fr).