Thanks for the very relevant questions Joe.

Of course it is totally possible that people use the toilet for urination and then sit outside for defecation. If anything though, I think it would be the reverse- using the toilet for defecation and having a quick wee somewhere else.

It is also true that a participating family could set up another system to collect their urine and then carefully dump it into the urine tanks that were attached to their UDDTs. It seems like a lot of work, but it could have happened.

Obviously, this type of large-scale field experiment was prone to any and all types of unexpected outcomes- that's what makes it fun!. However, and on the whole, cheaters, losses, errors, included, the results were large enough and positive enough that I think the use of CCTs for toilet use (and not just construction) should be considered further.

Best,

ET

Ah-ha, I see.

But is it not the case that participants could be collecting the urine for payment/reward whilst still practicing Open Defecation? How is this showing the value of different types of reward in terms of the total use of sanitation systems?

It looks like the participants are using UDDTs, but do you know that the urine was collected from the UDDT?

Again, I need to read more of your thesis, maybe everything is explained within.

Good question, for which there are a few answers.

1. The project was conducted within the VUNA project which was primarily focused on the recovery of nutrients from urine. There is a long thread on the forum about the different VUNA projects, in case you are interested on the specific technologies (e.g. struvite, nitrification, etc.)*

2. Urine was relatively easy to collect, transport and measure. The payments were made based on the volume of urine delivered. I can not imagine how this could be done with faeces, though I would love to know if someone has tried!

3. I think urine was a much easier entry point for this kind of research, which was already unorthodox. Asking people to handle faeces would face many more obstacles.

All the best,

ET


* See: forum.susana.org/forum/categories/98-res...ients-in-africa#3285

HI Elizabeth, it looks interesting. I will have to read it in more detail, but can you tell us why the payments were only offered for urine rather than faecal collection?

Hi all,

I was inspired by the discussion on the webinar yesterday about Results-Based Financing and thought I would add to the conversation by sharing a link to my newly finished dissertation.

It is available as a PDF here:

e-collection.library.ethz.ch/eserv/eth:47658/eth-47658-02.pdf

The official title is "Acceptance, impact and feasibility of incentives for increasing toilet use: A case study in Ethekwini, South Africa" but basically asks: Can we use CCTs for increasing toilet use?

The answer, in case you do not have time to read 187 pages is YES! but with conditions...

Many thanks also to everyone who helped to make these pages happen. It was an amazing experience, but I'm happy it's done

Liz