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Information and Public Service Provision: Experimental Evidence from School WASH Services in Bangladesh

Last registered on September 25, 2019

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Information and Public Service Provision: Experimental Evidence from School WASH Services in Bangladesh
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0003111
Initial registration date
July 11, 2018

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
July 17, 2018, 5:03 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
September 25, 2019, 2:36 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Stockholm University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Institute for International Economic Studies
PI Affiliation
NGO Forum for Public Health
PI Affiliation
Water Integrity Network
PI Affiliation
Water Integrity Network

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2018-07-21
End date
2019-12-31
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Can information and community-based monitoring improve the delivery of public services? This study evaluates the Annotated Water Integrity Scan (AWIS), a participatory approach to assess governance risks in public service provision, identify priority risks and define action plans. The intervention is scalable, replicable and adaptable to a wide range of contexts: in this case, the provision of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) services in Bangladeshi schools.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Allakulov, Umrbek et al. 2019. "Information and Public Service Provision: Experimental Evidence from School WASH Services in Bangladesh." AEA RCT Registry. September 25. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3111-2.0
Former Citation
Allakulov, Umrbek et al. 2019. "Information and Public Service Provision: Experimental Evidence from School WASH Services in Bangladesh." AEA RCT Registry. September 25. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3111/history/54057
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention we propose to evaluate is the Annotated Water Integrity Scan (AWIS). AWIS is a participatory approach to information gathering and dissemination designed to evaluate integrity, defined here as a set of practices that impede corruption and promote respect for the rule of law. AWIS is also specifically designed to identify priority steps for improvement. AWIS is scalable, replicable, and adaptable to a wide range of contexts: in this case, the provision of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) services in schools. AWIS was developed by the Water Integrity Network (WIN) and has been adapted and applied in countries including Benin, India, Uganda, and Guatemala.

The AWIS intervention consists of three stages: a policy review; a survey by NGO personnel; and a stakeholder workshop. The workshop is the cornerstone of the process and itself consists of three stages: 1) Stakeholders, including students, parents, school staff and local government administrators, anonymously score processes on transparency, accountability and participation indicators. 2) Participants are invited to openly discuss and defend all scores, high and low, regardless of their own position. Based on the outcomes of the discussion, the scores are jointly adjusted and aggregated, until they are agreed upon. 3) Participants identify priority risks and action areas. The AWIS process makes it possible to discuss integrity without antagonizing stakeholders and helps raise awareness on contrasting points of view and unexpected risks. The assessment provides a basis to advocate for undertaking steps to strengthen institutional and governance mechanisms.

In this study, we implement AWIS with respect to WASH service provision in high schools in rural Bangladesh.
Intervention Start Date
2018-08-15
Intervention End Date
2018-11-15

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
a) Indicators of WASH provision, developed from national guidelines and international recommendations (e.g. UNICEF, 2012) such as the presence of water and soap for hand washing.

b) School attendance (overall and disaggregated by gender).

c) Exam results (overall and disaggregated by gender).

d) Latrine use (overall and disaggregated by gender in case of latrine facilities separated by gender).
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
a) Indicators of WASH provision: We carry out an extensive and comprehensive data collection for each WASH facility in the school. We include indicators on cleanliness and maintenance of the facility, the presence of basic items for hygienic practices, and adoption of MHM standards. Information are collected by enumerators based on their own independent observation of each facility, and supported by a detailed series of pictures.

b) School attendance: We obtain attendance data for two calendar months preceding the survey (chosen to exclude religious festivals or major examinations) and for the month when the survey takes place from attendance books. In addition, we obtain audit data by own head-count (disaggregated by gender) performed by our enumerators at the beginning of the school visit. Attendance data are collected for one randomly selected classroom per grade.

c) Exam results: We collect test results on the most recent standardized national exams for grade 8 and grade 10 from official school records.

d) Latrine use: We use event loggers to obtain data in a discrete and non-intrusive manner. Whenever latrines have doors, we use magnetic sensors that record opening and closure of latrine doors. Alternatively, we use motion sensors. Data on latrine use are collected for a maximum of 4 latrines per school, randomly selected.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We conduct our study in 60 schools, selected by our local partner DORP and equally distributed in two Upazilas, Bhola and Ramgati.

The intervention we evaluate consists in the participation of school stakeholders (students, parents, school staff and local government administrators) in the AWIS workshop. During the workshop, stakeholders discuss the current status of WASH facilities in the school and agree on an action plan for future improvements and developments.
Before the implementation of the AWIS workshop we collected baseline data in all schools. We plan to collect follow-up data in all schools between 6 months and 1 year after the implementation of the intervention.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
We randomly assign schools to receive the invitation to the AWIS workshop by public lottery, stratified by Upazila.
Randomization Unit
The randomization is performed at school level.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
60 schools
Sample size: planned number of observations
60 schools. We obtain attendance data for a maximum of 5 classes per school, and latrine use data for a maximum of 4 latrines per school. We obtain WASH provision indicators for all water and sanitation facilities in the school, whose numbers are unknown to us in advance. Whenever possible, we will exploit this increased sample size in the analysis, although we will conduct inference accounting for assignment to treatment at the school level.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Control schools: 30.
Treated schools: 30.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Our most conservative power calculations exploit only the variation across schools and follow Burlig et al. (2017) to account for the panel data structure, and serial autocorrelation. With significance level 10% and power 80%; assuming that school fixed effects and time fixed effects explain in total 70% of the variation in the outcome variables; and further assuming a value of 0.05 times the variance for the serial correlation parameter, the minimum detectable effect (MDEs) is 0.5 s.d. While these MDEs correspond to relatively large effects, most of our analyses will be powered to detect smaller effects as a result of obtaining, for most of the outcomes of interest, multiple observations within each school at each survey.
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Pre-Analysis Plan

MD5: 485c94b9e34108fb14b15991444a8e40

SHA1: f80540fdaef2a895a34ccc3b24124b85015c696b

Uploaded At: September 25, 2019

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials