Effective community mobilization: evidence from Mali

Autores
Alzúa, María Laura; Cardenas, Juan Camilo; Djebbari, Habiba
Año de publicación
2025
Idioma
inglés
Tipo de recurso
artículo
Estado
versión publicada
Descripción
Experts argue that the adoption of healthy sanitation practices, such as hand washing and latrine use, requires focusing on the entire community rather than individual behaviors. According to this view, one limiting factor in ending open defecation lies in the capacity of the community to collectively act toward this goal. Each member of a community bears the private cost of contributing by washing hands and using latrines, but the benefits through better health outcomes depend on whether other community members also opt out of open defecation. We rely on a community-based intervention carried out in Mali as an illustrative example (Community-Led Total Sanitation or CLTS). Using a series of experiments conducted in 121 villages and designed to measure the willingness of community members to contribute to a local public good, we investigate the process of participation in a collective action problem setting. Our focus is on two types of activities: (1) gathering of community members to encourage public discussion of the collective action problem, and (2) facilitation by a community champion of the adoption of individual actions to attain the socially preferred outcome. In games, communication helps raise public good provision, and both open discussion and facilitated ones have the same impact. When a community member facilitates a discussion after an open discussion session, public good contributions increase, but there are no gains from opening up the discussion after a facilitated session. Community members who choose to contribute in the no-communication treatment are not better facilitators than those who choose not to contribute.
Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales
Materia
Ciencias Económicas
Public good provision
Behavioral experiments
Community-based development
Sanitation
Nivel de accesibilidad
acceso abierto
Condiciones de uso
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Repositorio
SEDICI (UNLP)
Institución
Universidad Nacional de La Plata
OAI Identificador
oai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/181585

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network_name_str SEDICI (UNLP)
spelling Effective community mobilization: evidence from MaliAlzúa, María LauraCardenas, Juan CamiloDjebbari, HabibaCiencias EconómicasPublic good provisionBehavioral experimentsCommunity-based developmentSanitationExperts argue that the adoption of healthy sanitation practices, such as hand washing and latrine use, requires focusing on the entire community rather than individual behaviors. According to this view, one limiting factor in ending open defecation lies in the capacity of the community to collectively act toward this goal. Each member of a community bears the private cost of contributing by washing hands and using latrines, but the benefits through better health outcomes depend on whether other community members also opt out of open defecation. We rely on a community-based intervention carried out in Mali as an illustrative example (Community-Led Total Sanitation or CLTS). Using a series of experiments conducted in 121 villages and designed to measure the willingness of community members to contribute to a local public good, we investigate the process of participation in a collective action problem setting. Our focus is on two types of activities: (1) gathering of community members to encourage public discussion of the collective action problem, and (2) facilitation by a community champion of the adoption of individual actions to attain the socially preferred outcome. In games, communication helps raise public good provision, and both open discussion and facilitated ones have the same impact. When a community member facilitates a discussion after an open discussion session, public good contributions increase, but there are no gains from opening up the discussion after a facilitated session. Community members who choose to contribute in the no-communication treatment are not better facilitators than those who choose not to contribute.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales2025-06info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionArticulohttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501info:ar-repo/semantics/articuloapplication/pdfhttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/181585enginfo:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/1873-5991info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.106956info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)reponame:SEDICI (UNLP)instname:Universidad Nacional de La Platainstacron:UNLP2025-10-22T17:30:26Zoai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/181585Institucionalhttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/Universidad públicaNo correspondehttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/oai/snrdalira@sedici.unlp.edu.arArgentinaNo correspondeNo correspondeNo correspondeopendoar:13292025-10-22 17:30:27.226SEDICI (UNLP) - Universidad Nacional de La Platafalse
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Effective community mobilization: evidence from Mali
title Effective community mobilization: evidence from Mali
spellingShingle Effective community mobilization: evidence from Mali
Alzúa, María Laura
Ciencias Económicas
Public good provision
Behavioral experiments
Community-based development
Sanitation
title_short Effective community mobilization: evidence from Mali
title_full Effective community mobilization: evidence from Mali
title_fullStr Effective community mobilization: evidence from Mali
title_full_unstemmed Effective community mobilization: evidence from Mali
title_sort Effective community mobilization: evidence from Mali
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Alzúa, María Laura
Cardenas, Juan Camilo
Djebbari, Habiba
author Alzúa, María Laura
author_facet Alzúa, María Laura
Cardenas, Juan Camilo
Djebbari, Habiba
author_role author
author2 Cardenas, Juan Camilo
Djebbari, Habiba
author2_role author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Ciencias Económicas
Public good provision
Behavioral experiments
Community-based development
Sanitation
topic Ciencias Económicas
Public good provision
Behavioral experiments
Community-based development
Sanitation
dc.description.none.fl_txt_mv Experts argue that the adoption of healthy sanitation practices, such as hand washing and latrine use, requires focusing on the entire community rather than individual behaviors. According to this view, one limiting factor in ending open defecation lies in the capacity of the community to collectively act toward this goal. Each member of a community bears the private cost of contributing by washing hands and using latrines, but the benefits through better health outcomes depend on whether other community members also opt out of open defecation. We rely on a community-based intervention carried out in Mali as an illustrative example (Community-Led Total Sanitation or CLTS). Using a series of experiments conducted in 121 villages and designed to measure the willingness of community members to contribute to a local public good, we investigate the process of participation in a collective action problem setting. Our focus is on two types of activities: (1) gathering of community members to encourage public discussion of the collective action problem, and (2) facilitation by a community champion of the adoption of individual actions to attain the socially preferred outcome. In games, communication helps raise public good provision, and both open discussion and facilitated ones have the same impact. When a community member facilitates a discussion after an open discussion session, public good contributions increase, but there are no gains from opening up the discussion after a facilitated session. Community members who choose to contribute in the no-communication treatment are not better facilitators than those who choose not to contribute.
Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales
description Experts argue that the adoption of healthy sanitation practices, such as hand washing and latrine use, requires focusing on the entire community rather than individual behaviors. According to this view, one limiting factor in ending open defecation lies in the capacity of the community to collectively act toward this goal. Each member of a community bears the private cost of contributing by washing hands and using latrines, but the benefits through better health outcomes depend on whether other community members also opt out of open defecation. We rely on a community-based intervention carried out in Mali as an illustrative example (Community-Led Total Sanitation or CLTS). Using a series of experiments conducted in 121 villages and designed to measure the willingness of community members to contribute to a local public good, we investigate the process of participation in a collective action problem setting. Our focus is on two types of activities: (1) gathering of community members to encourage public discussion of the collective action problem, and (2) facilitation by a community champion of the adoption of individual actions to attain the socially preferred outcome. In games, communication helps raise public good provision, and both open discussion and facilitated ones have the same impact. When a community member facilitates a discussion after an open discussion session, public good contributions increase, but there are no gains from opening up the discussion after a facilitated session. Community members who choose to contribute in the no-communication treatment are not better facilitators than those who choose not to contribute.
publishDate 2025
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2025-06
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