Christian Borja-Vega

• The effects of the Total Sanitation and Sanitation Marketing programme on gender and ethnic groups in Indonesia

  01.01.2014
  The Total Sanitation and Sanitation Marketing (TSSM) programme launched in the province of East Java, Indonesia in 2007. The TSSM promoted collective behaviour change moving from open defecation to more hygienic practices. This paper expands the analysis of a previous rigorous impact evaluation based on a cluster randomized controlled trial by studying programme differential impacts by female-headed households and three main ethnic groups. Because previous TSSM impacts found were relatively small, this led to small improvement in morbidity and child growth effects among poor households. This study examines two subgroups within the sample, female-headed households and ethnic populations (GEG), to explore whether the effects can be identified for both of these subgroups. The paper shows that female-headed TSSM households experienced a reduction of 5.8 per cent in diarrhoea prevalence of children under 5 years old. Ethnicities benefited differently from the programme: the Javanese ethnicity experienced no improvements in outcomes while the Madurese ethnic group showed significant improvements of one-sixth of one standard deviation (8.6 cm) of height-for-age in children (1.43 cm average) and one-fifth of a standard deviation (3.7 cm) increase in head circumference. Other ethnic groups showed a 20.6 per cent reduction in open defecation compared to non-exposed households. Because sanitation campaigns reach households and the intra-household responsibilities for sanitation practices depend partly on culture and social norms, certain components of TSSM can be mainstreamed to achieve behaviour change effectively towards gender and ethnic groups.

• Sustainability of rural water systems: quantitative analysis of Nicaragua’s monitoring data

  01.01.2017
  The sustainability of rural water supply services (WSS) remains one of the core challenges of the rural water sector in Nicaragua. The data available through the Central American Rural Water and Sanitation Information System in Nicaragua (SIASAR, in Spanish) is utilized to investigate the factors that drive the sustained functionality and quality of rural WSS systems over time. This report uses data from 6,863 communities, 4,792 water systems, 2,585 service providers, and 154 technical assistance (TA) providers contained in the SIASAR dataset. Statistical and econometric analysis provide evidence to support the hypothesis – widespread among rural WSS practitioners – that ‘soft’ measures in the provision of WSS are effective in fostering sustainability or ‘functionality’ of those systems. Such ‘soft’ measures include management capacity building of WSS community boards in charge of WSS oversight; demand-responsive approaches for developing, operating, managing, maintaining, rural water infrastructure; cost recovery mechanisms; community participation in the management of WSS systems; and the sustained provision of post-construction TA by local authorities. These measures are found as important determinants of the sustainability of WSS and its investments, and therefore are recommended to be included and institutionalized in rural WSS sector development policies.