A Drop in the Bucket

The lack of improved water and sanitary infrastructure still kills many people in developing countries each year. This book gives useful insights into how development projects have an impact in practice and why there is a possibility that projects fail to have positive outcomes. In this book, the national water and sanitation program in rural Benin is analyzed. A difference-in-difference analysis is combined with a phasing-in approach to a sample of 200 villages in the departments of Mono, Couffo and Collines. The water program installs modern water sources as public pumps or standpipes in the villages in 2009 and afterwards. An additional household intervention for water transport and storage containers was design and is analyzed in a randomized control trail. The main outcome variables analyzed are water quality at the water source and in the household, usage rates, time savings and distance reduction because of the installation of a new water point. Further, it is analyzed why the coverage rate of sanitary facilities remain low in the rural areas of Benin.