Social and Financial Barriers to Safe (Drinking) Water and Sanitation: The Role of Development Agents in Ethiopia

The use of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) practices remains an important development agenda, but their use is currently low in many developing countries owing to several social and financial barriers. In this paper, we investigate the role of development agents (DAs) in stirring the use of safe drinking water and sanitation practices. We examine access to DAs at the extensive and intensive margins and relate this to some WASH practices such as access to piped water, protected springs, open springs, improved latrines, pit latrines and open defecation. We rely on a rich panel dataset from households in Ethiopia and estimate both the Mundlak–Chamberlain device and the household fixed effect estimator. We find a positive association between DAs (both at the extensive and intensive margins) and the use of improved and pit latrines. Relatedly, we also establish a negative association between DAs and open defecation. Furthermore, we obtain a positive relationship between DAs and drinking water from protected springs at the intensive margin and a negative with the use of open springs. Delving into what may be driving these relationships, we find suggestive evidence that income, membership in social and cooperative groups, access to credit—from banks or microfinance institutions as well as enhanced social networks may—well explain these results. Our findings underscore the importance of social and financial factors as possible enablers/barriers of the adoption of WASH practices. Given this, we provide support to the strengthening of extension and advisory systems as they have the potential to increase safe (drinking) water and sanitation practices.