Water insecurity and quality is a major challenge in Tanzania. In this project, we concentrate on the supply by examining the potential for using low-cost behavioural interventions to improve water supply management. The project is a collaboration between EfD researchers, international associates, as well as EWURA, the parastatal organization in Tanzania responsible for water supply and sanitation authorities. Our project contributes directly to Tanzania’s current five-year development plan of improving access to clean water.
The overall goal of the project is to examine the potential for using low-cost and scalable behavioural-economic interventions to facilitate behavioural change in the provision of water in Tanzania. We will implement a randomized control trial and follow 130 water supply and sanitation authorities (WSSAs) and conduct a baseline survey amongst 1300 village water committees (VWCs). We design the following two interventions:
- We randomize WSSAs to receive summary information regarding their performance on a monthly basis relative to their peers on three key dimensions: quality; quantity and resource availability.
- We cross-randomize the information provision with an incentivized lottery to encourage the submission of innovative solutions by WSSAs to improve performance.
The selected interventions are purposefully low cost with intention of optimizing the design of information and experience sharing in the water sector. Our key outcomes of interest are: average hours of supply (water quantity); water quality compliance (water quality) and accounts receivable (resources).
