The Political Economy of Village Sanitation in South India: Capture or Poor Information?

Radu Ban (), Monica Das Gupta () and Vijayendra Rao
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Radu Ban: The World Bank, Postal: 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433
Monica Das Gupta: The World Bank, Postal: 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433

No 4802, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Despite efforts to mandate and finance local governments' provision of environmental sanitation services, outcomes remain poor in the villages surveyed in the four South Indian states. The analysis indicates some key issues that appear to hinder improvements in sanitation. Local politicians tend to capture sanitary infrastructure and cleaning services for themselves, while also keeping major village roads reasonably well-served. Their decisions suggest, however, that they neither understand the health benefits of sanitation, nor the negative externalities to their own health if surrounding areas are poorly served. Our findings suggest that improving sanitary outcomes requires disseminating information on the public goods nature of their health benefits, as well as on the local government's responsibilities. It also requires putting public health regulations in place, along with measures to enable accountability in service provision.

Keywords: access to services; accountability; Accounting; affiliates; agricultural output; agriculture; air; air freight; air transport; Backbone; bank loans; Bank of Tanzania; Banking sector (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2008-12-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-dev and nep-pol
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Related works:
Journal Article: The Political Economy of Village Sanitation in South India: Capture or Poor Information? (2010)
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