Research Project

Now that we have finished our first week of BRAC and our projects have been clearly defined, I thought I would share a little bit about the specific project I am working on. As I mentioned in my email, BRAC uses microfinance as a platform from which it operates many other programs, such as poultry rearing, agriculture, health, and education. The health project incorporates education on water, sanitation, and hygiene and passes out some related supplies like water filters, but BRAC is interested in exploring the possibility of creating a totally new water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) program. Unlike many organizations, BRAC is very rigorous in its methods and actually uses formative evaluation research to thoroughly assess the current situation, which ultimately informs program design.

Because I am only here for two months and I want to make sure I can complete my project, I am focusing only on the sanitation and related hygiene aspect of this potential program. Water and sanitation are traditionally grouped together, but inevitably money, resources, time, and energy are largely allocated for water, leaving sanitation with little. The same has applied here in Uganda, which is why I’m deciding to focus in this area (I also have had a recent interest in sanitation after reading “The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why it Matters” – that’s a shout out to you Caroline). Its actually nice to be not focusing on the “hot” topic of HIV/AIDS like I have in the past, and switching to one that has less appeal to most, but is actually drawing me in more because it is such a basic need that doesn’t require complicated technology, and can decrease disease spread by so much when coupled with the right behaviors. Right now latrine coverage in Uganda stands at around 60%, so there is certainly a lot left to do in this area.

The general process I have mapped out for my time here is to first spend a week or two doing some background research on sanitation and the work being done on sanitation here in Uganda. This mostly requires a literature review from journals and other sources, as well as meeting with organizations who are already working on sanitation here. A few days ago I visited a Water and Sanitation Resource Center and got a little bit of background information, but I’m planning to return to that area next week because all of the sanitation NGOs seem to be concentrated in that district of Kampala. By meeting with these key informants, I’m hoping to get a sense of what strategies are currently being used and tested, what has worked, and what challenges and gaps remain in sanitation. This will hopefully provide information on where BRAC’s new program can contribute, and fill in the gaps rather than duplicating existing work.

The next step will be to travel to a few of BRAC’s branches throughout the country (planning on visiting about 6-8 villages) to conduct some focus groups and interviews with the communities there. The purpose of this will be to get more direct information on the knowledge and behaviors related to sanitation on the ground, and to assess the attitudes of the community towards potential interventions that BRAC may want to use. For example, a new interesting technology that is starting to be used in a few countries are composting toilets, which don’t require running water, are considered sanitary, and create compost which can be used as fertilizer. However, some of my contacts have told me there is some resistance to using this kind of toilet because the community has not quite accepted the concept of re-using human waste. Thus, it is necessary to talk with the community about their thoughts and feelings towards different methods so that BRAC can decide what kinds of programs will not only be the most effective, but the most acceptable.

Once I have gathered all of this information I’ll be spending a few weeks compiling everything and analyzing the data. Ultimately I hope to be able to propose 2-3 strategies that BRAC can use in a sanitation program that have been proven effective in literature, provide the most benefit for the lowest cost, and are the most likely to be accepted in the communities. Things are likely to change over time as I face the realities of actually doing this research, but this is the general plan for now!