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A community based program promotes sanitation

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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.

Suggested Citation

  • María Laura Alzúa & Habiba Djebbari & Amy J. Pickering, 2020. "A community based program promotes sanitation," AMSE Working Papers 1857, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
  • Handle: RePEc:aim:wpaimx:1857
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    Cited by:

    1. Abramovsky, Laura & Augsburg, Britta & Lührmann, Melanie & Oteiza, Francisco & Rud, Juan Pablo, 2023. "Community matters: Heterogeneous impacts of a sanitation intervention," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    2. Revilla, Ma. Laarni D. & Qu, Fangqi & Seetharam, K E & Rao, Bhanoji, 2021. "“Sanitation” in the Top Development Journals: A Review," ADBI Working Papers 1253, Asian Development Bank Institute.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    sanitation; behavioral change; community-based intervention; social norm;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior

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