| 1. |
- Scaini, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Pathways from research to sustainable development: Insights from ten research projects in sustainability and resilience
- 2024
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Ingår i: AMBIO. - : SPRINGER. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Drawing on collective experience from ten collaborative research projects focused on the Global South, we identify three major challenges that impede the translation of research on sustainability and resilience into better-informed choices by individuals and policy-makers that in turn can support transformation to a sustainable future. The three challenges comprise: (i) converting knowledge produced during research projects into successful knowledge application; (ii) scaling up knowledge in time when research projects are short-term and potential impacts are long-term; and (iii) scaling up knowledge across space, from local research sites to larger-scale or even global impact. Some potential pathways for funding agencies to overcome these challenges include providing targeted prolonged funding for dissemination and outreach, and facilitating collaboration and coordination across different sites, research teams, and partner organizations. By systematically documenting these challenges, we hope to pave the way for further innovations in the research cycle.
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| 2. |
- Allakulov, Umrbek, et al.
(författare)
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Transparency, governance, and water and sanitation : Experimental evidence from schools in rural Bangladesh
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Development Economics. - : Elsevier. - 0304-3878 .- 1872-6089. ; 163
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Can transparency interventions improve WASH service provision? We use a randomized experiment to evaluate the impacts of a transparency intervention, a deliberative multi-stakeholder workshop initiated with a community scorecard exercise, in schools in rural Bangladesh. To measure impacts, we combine survey data, direct observations, and administrative data. The intervention leads to moderate but consistent improvements in knowledge of WASH standards and practices, and institutions for WASH service management, but does not improve school WASH service provision or change WASH facility use patterns. Drawing on rich descriptive data, we suggest several reasons why the intervention we evaluate did not improve WASH service outcomes and propose ways to improve the design of future interventions.
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| 3. |
- Cocciolo, Serena, et al.
(författare)
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Do Community Water Sources Provide Safe Drinking Water? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Rural Bangladesh
- 2021
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Ingår i: The World Bank Economic Review. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0258-6770 .- 1564-698X. ; 35:4, s. 969-998
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Health, and in turn income and welfare, depend on access to safe drinking water. Although the majority of rural households worldwide obtain drinking water from community water sources, there is limited evidence about how effectively these sources provide safe drinking water. This study combines a randomized experiment with water quality testing to evaluate the impact of a program that provides community deep tubewells in rural Bangladesh. The program reduces exposure to arsenic, a major natural pollutant, but not fecal contamination. Households may use fewer sources with fecal contamination, but any such effects are offset by recontamination through transport and possibly storage. The results suggest that while community deep-tubewell construction programs may reduce exposure to arsenic in Bangladesh, reducing exposure to fecal contamination may require interventions that go beyond community sources.
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| 4. |
- Habib, Md. Ahasan, et al.
(författare)
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How to clean a tubewell : the effectiveness of three approaches in reducing coliform bacteria
- 2023
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Ingår i: Science of the Total Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0048-9697 .- 1879-1026. ; 872, s. 161932-161932
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Access to safe drinking water in rural Bangladesh remains a perpetual challenge. Most households are exposed to either arsenic or faecal bacteria in their primary source of drinking water, usually a tubewell. Improving tubewell cleaning and maintenance practices might reduce exposure to faecal contamination at a potentially low cost, but whether current cleaning and maintenance practices are effective remains uncertain, as does the extent to which best practice approaches might improve water quality. We used a randomized experiment to evaluate how effectively three approaches to cleaning a tubewell improved water quality, measured by total coliforms and E. coli. The three approaches comprise the caretaker's usual standard of care and two best-practice approaches. One best-practice approach, disinfecting the well with a weak chlorine solution, consistently improved water quality. However, when caretakers cleaned the wells themselves, they followed few of the steps involved in the best-practice approaches, and water quality declined rather than improved, although the estimated declines are not consistently statistically significant. The results suggest that, while improvements to cleaning and maintenance practices might help reduce exposure to faecal contamination in drinking water in rural Bangladesh, achieving widespread adoption of more effective practices would require significant behavioural change.
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| 5. |
- Habib, Md. Ahasan, 1978-
(författare)
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Increasing the impact and sustainability of safe drinking water supply systems in rural Bangladesh : Randomized experiments with interventions in project life cycle
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Tillgång till rent dricksvatten är en global utmaning, vilket återspeglas i hållbar utvecklingsmål 6. I Bangladesh är det en brådskande fråga att överbrygga klyftan mellan de som har säkert hanterat dricksvatten och de med förbättrade källor. Denna studie uppskattar orsakssamband mellan ingrepp i projektets livscykel och deras inverkan på hållbar tillgång till rent dricksvatten på landsbygden. En serie randomiserade kontrollförsök (RCT) genomfördes i olika regioner i Bangladesh under 15 år av rörbrunnskonstruktionsprogram för att tillhandahålla arsenikfritt dricksvatten. RCT:erna utvärderade förändringar av beslutsprocesser, bidragskrav och underhållspraxis. Gemenskapens deltagande i beslutsprocesser kan öka effekten och hållbarheten hos program för säkert dricksvatten. Att kräva att samhällen bidrar ekonomiskt eller genom arbetskraft ökar inte nödvändigtvis programmets genomslagskraft, och det kan leda till minskat utnyttjande och minskad kostnadseffektivitet, även om det kan öka hållbarheten. Gemenskapens vattenkällor är mindre effektiva än förväntat på grund av föroreningar som införts under kollektiv användning och problem som rör transport och lagring: de bidrar till att minska exponeringen för arsenik men tar inte upp avföringskontamination effektivt. Desinficering av brunnar med en svag klorlösning minskade fekal kontaminering. Vaktmästares standardrengöringsmetoder följer i allmänhet inte bästa praxis och kan försämra vattenkvaliteten. Utbildning av vaktmästare i bästa praxis visade sig dock vara mycket effektiv för att minska. Escherichia coli-kontamination, vilket avsevärt förbättrar vattenkvaliteten. Trots vissa brister i vaktmästarens återkallande och efterlevnad, belyser dessa resultat den avgörande roll som korrekta rengörings- och underhållsmetoder spelar för att minska exponeringen för fekal kontaminering på landsbygden i Bangladesh, för att säkerställa tillgång till rent dricksvatten. Studien belyser kraften hos RCT:er för att ta itu med komplexa orsaksfrågor relaterade till säker tillgång till dricksvatten. Även om värdefulla insikter har uppnåtts, understryker studien att många obesvarade frågor kvarstår, vilket understryker det pågående behovet av forskning inom detta kritiska område. Sammanfattningsvis ger denna studie viktiga bevis om hur man kan förbättra projektdesign och därmed öka tillgången till säkert dricksvatten på landsbygden i Bangladesh.
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| 6. |
- Habib, Md Ahasan, et al.
(författare)
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When Does Community Participation in Decision-Making Improve Outcomes? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Bangladesh.
- 2023
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Development practitioners have long advocated for targeted beneficiary communities to participate in decision-making about how to provide local public goods and services. However, community participation in decision-making may have disadvantages as well as benefits, and the balance between the benefits and disadvantages may vary across different decision- making processes, interventions, and contexts. Previous studies of community participation in decision-making indeed report mixed results, but the underlying reasons for this remain uncertain. This study demonstrates that context matters. We investigate the heterogeneity of impacts in a field experiment conducted in two regions of rural Bangladesh. The experiment randomly assigns different decision-making processes to villages that receive otherwise identical interventions in the form of a program to increase access to safe drinking water. We show that a deliberative, consensus-based approach to community participation in decision- making has strongly heterogeneous effects compared to either a top-down approach or community decision-making without rules about how decisions are made. The consensus- based process doubles the program's impact in one region but barely increases it in the other. We use machine learning to identify the baseline characteristics and mechanisms that correlate most strongly with impact. The results suggest that the consensus-based process yields better outcomes when there is more at stake: specifically, when the community has fewer pre-existing safe sources of drinking water and thus more to gain from the intervention. The results are consistent with the view that inclusive participatory approaches to decision- making can increase program impacts but fully engaging in these processes is costly. When less is at stake, communities may not fully engage, and the advantages of inclusive participatory decision-making may not be realized.
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| 7. |
- Linnros, Evelina, 1990-
(författare)
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Essays on Fertility and Health
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Infertility Risk and Child MarriageThe high infertility rates observed in some developing countries may have broad societal impacts, for example by people marrying and having children at a young age to increase their chances of reaching their fertility target. I study the link between infertility risk and marriage timing using data from Madagascar. Specifically, I focus on how infertility risk affects the probability of child marriage, a practice associated with adverse outcomes for young brides and their children. I use spatial variation in exposure to the parasite schistosomiasis. The empirical strategy compares two strains of this parasite, similar in their transmission mechanisms and health impacts, except that one of the two strains causes infertility. In my data, exposure to this strain increases the probability that a woman is infertile by 40%. I find that exposure to the infertility-causing strain increases the probability of child marriage and early fertility by 22%.Maternal Health and Labor Market OutcomesWe study how severe injuries related to childbirth affect mothers' labor market outcomes. 1 in 20 first-time mothers who have a vaginal delivery suffer a severe birth tear, which can have long-lasting adverse impacts on their health and quality of life. Using a difference-in-differences design with a matched control group, we find that severe birth tears lead to a 6% higher earnings loss in the first five years after childbirth compared to the control group. The effect is larger for mothers from low SES backgrounds, while high SES mothers are found to seek more healthcare following their injury.Alcohol Availability, Prenatal Conditions and Midlife Mental Health We examine the long-term mental health effects of an 8.5-month policy experiment that led to a sharp and unexpected increase in alcohol availability, focusing on individuals exposed to the policy in utero. We use administrative healthcare and drug prescription records to identify individuals who have received treatment for a mental health disorder. Prenatal exposure to the policy had a large and persistent effect on mental health: the exposed cohort is 16% more likely to be treated for a mental disorder in midlife. The effect is largest for those exposed from the second trimester and is only partly explained by the lower earnings observed among exposed individuals.The Value of Monitoring for Disaster Prevention: The Desert LocustMonitoring systems are meant to detect early signs of potentially disastrous outbreaks of diseases and pests, in time for preventative action. These monitoring systems are costly, and identifying their economic value requires estimating damages from outbreaks in empirical settings where monitoring is neither uniform nor exogenous. We estimate the value of monitoring systems for desert locusts, known to devour entire agricultural fields. We leverage conflict and weather events in breeding areas to detect the effects of monitoring interruptions on swarm outbreaks. We then reconstruct the spatial patterns of locust migrations to propagate these effects on swarm outbreaks beyond breeding areas. Finally, we show that in-utero exposure to a swarm increases the probability of stunting by 16%. These estimates allow us to quantify the effects of a change in monitoring efforts on subsequent locust swarms and on human health.
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| 8. |
- Madajewicz, Malgosia, et al.
(författare)
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How does delegating decisions to communities affect the provision and use of a public service? : Evidence from a field experiment in Bangladesh*
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of Development Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0304-3878 .- 1872-6089. ; 150
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Most development practitioners would list engaging communities in the provision of public services among best practices for improving access. However, whether community participation enhances provision and use of public services relative to a non-participatory approach is largely unknown because few studies compare impacts when the same public service intervention is implemented with and without community participation. This field experiment compares three approaches to providing safe water in rural Bangladesh. Delegating decisions to the community increases use of safe water by about 80% relative to a top-down provider making the same decisions but only when the approach to delegating decisions limits elite influence.
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| 9. |
- Tompsett, Anna
(författare)
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The Lazarus drug : the impact of antiretroviral therapy on economic growth
- 2020
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Ingår i: Journal of Development Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0304-3878 .- 1872-6089. ; 143
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Does better population health lead to growth in per capita income? Theory is ambiguous and empirical evidence is very limited. In 2001, a steep fall in antiretroviral (ARV) drug prices triggered rapid and massive expansion of ARV therapy coverage in lower-income countries. Exploiting the sharp resultant changes in population health, I show that ARV therapy coverage expansion led to growth in GDP per capita. The positive effects on growth most likely persist for around four years. ARV therapy coverage expansion could explain around a third of the sub-Saharan African growth miracle.
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| 10. |
- von Carnap, Tillmann, 1991-
(författare)
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Markets and marketplaces : Essays on access and transformation in remote rural economies
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Market access and agricultural intensification: Remotely-sensed evidence from Mozambican river crossingsMany believe that high transport costs are a significant constraint to agricultural intensification in rural Africa. Empirical evidence is limited, however, because areas with high agricultural potential may see more infrastructure improvements and data is rarely available at the necessary granularity. We use satellite imagery to measure agricultural outcomes in Mozambique, where inadequate river crossings create discrete jumps in travel costs between banks. We find that better-connected banks have 4.1% more land under cultivation than worse-connected counterparts. Improved access thus leads to intensified land use, albeit at the potential cost of lost natural lands. Remotely-sensed market activity as a high-frequency economic indicator in remote rural areasEffective targeting of social policies and their rigorous evaluation require relevant and accurate data. With the majority of the world's poor depending on agriculture and informal businesses for their livelihoods, information on these sectors is particularly valuable. I use high-frequency satellite imagery to map rural marketplaces across large geographies and track activity within them in real-time. Measured activity not only displays intuitive variation with respect to exogenous shocks, but also deepens the temporal and geographical detail at which remote sensing-based analyses are possible. Rural marketplaces and local developmentMarketplaces are an age-old way to connect geographically separated producers and consumers, and they remain widespread in low-income countries. How do these gatherings shape development around them? To address long-standing data gaps, I combine historical sources with novel satellite-based methods to map marketplaces and measure local population density, establishing three stylized facts for Kenya over the last five decades. First, while rural population quadrupled, two thirds of weekly markets operating in 1970 no longer do so today. Second and despite many markets no longer operating, population concentrated on average around markets that were active in 1970. Third, markets further from large cities saw the most population concentration relative to their surroundings. To rationalize these findings and derive policy implications, I extend a model of rural-urban trade with markets as population-independent locations that aggregate otherwise sparse supply and demand and enable scale economies in transportation. The model explains when new markets emerge, why some markets decline, and which complementary policies catalyze markets for local development.Weather shocks, child mortality and adaptation: Experimental evidence from UgandaClimate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. With growing understanding of their health consequences, effective adaptation policies are needed. Combining data from a randomized trial inducing spatial variation in the availability of community-healthcare with data from a natural experiment inducing variation in growing-season precipitation, we assess the effect of investment in basic community healthcare to protect the poor from adverse consequences. We find that the risk of infant death following a rainfall deficit season fell by 46% in treatment relative to control villages. Thus, investments in basic healthcare in a low-income context can reduce the risk of weather-induced child mortality.
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