Overview
Access to clean water and proper sanitation is a critical issue affecting billions globally. Despite significant investments, the challenge persists, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. To address this, the Development Impact group is working to not only evaluate the impact of infrastructure investments but also to improve institutions, encourage community involvement, and promote behavioral changes in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH).
The Development Impact group’s WASH program covers 4 cross-cutting themes:
Theme 1: Building Resilient Infrastructure
The Development Impact group conducted a study in partnership with the FCDO in Tanzania revealing only 59% of water points were functional in 2021, but 88% could be fixed inexpensively. The World Bank and FCDO's focus on maintenance over building new infrastructure led to a 19% increase in functional water points in two years (Development Impact group, 2023).
[CAPTION: Water point functionality improves across most Local Government Authorities in Tanzania between 2019 and 2021]
Theme 2: Strengthening Institutions
The Development Impact group’s research highlights the importance of strong service providers in expanding and maintaining infrastructure, especially in urban areas. The Development Impact group’s research in Kenya shows that enforcing contracts significantly increased repayments. This financial boost allowed utilities to extend services to more communities. (Coville et al., 2023, Coville et al., 2023).
[CAPTION: Enforcement increases both the likelihood of customers paying as well as the amount paid to the utility]
Theme 3: Changing behavior
The Development Impact group’s research in rural Tanzania shows that handwashing and sanitation promotion campaigns led to a 15-percentage point increase in latrine ownership and a reduction of open defecation by 12 percentage points (Briceño et al., 2017). However, there were no child health effects, highlighting the complexity of achieving health gains through WASH interventions and suggesting a need for multifaceted strategies (Cumming et al., 2018).
Theme 4: Delivering “big-push” packages
The Development Impact group’s impact evaluation on a comprehensive WASH program in the Democratic Republic of Congo showed improved access to clean water and sanitation, with lasting infrastructure and management gains that sustained even three years after the intervention (Quattrochi et al., 2021).
