Mobile-based tracking system to ensure sustainability of a sanitation programme: experiences from four Indian states

India’s goal of achieving 100% sanitation coverage has been a long-standing one. While the recent push to eliminate open defecation has made significant progress taking India to a level of 61% coverage, the functionality of sanitary latrines and sustainability of open defecation free villages remain major challenges mainly due to the absence of a strong mechanism to track the progress of infrastructure and improvement in hygiene behaviours. The benefits of significant public investment made in the sanitation sector hence remain only partially realized. Against this backdrop, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) under its ambitious multi-state sanitation initiative spread across Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat has introduced GPS enabled mobile-based monitoring system to track the progress of sanitation infrastructure and hygiene behaviours. The initiative with the help of AKVO flow has so far tracked 19400 units till January 2017 to get the completion status, quality of construction and awareness levels and behaviour pattern of targeted communities

Mobile-based tracking system to ensure sustainability of a sanitation programme: experiences from four Indian states

India’s goal of achieving 100% sanitation coverage has been a long-standing one. While the recent push to eliminate open defecation has made significant progress taking India to a level of 61% coverage, the functionality of sanitary latrines and sustainability of open defecation free villages remain major challenges mainly due to the absence of a strong mechanism to track the progress of infrastructure and improvement in hygiene behaviours. The benefits of significant public investment made in the sanitation sector hence remain only partially realized. Against this backdrop, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) under its ambitious multi-state sanitation initiative spread across Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat has introduced GPS enabled mobile-based monitoring system to track the progress of sanitation infrastructure and hygiene behaviours. The initiative with the help of AKVO flow has so far tracked 19400 units till January 2017 to get the completion status, quality of construction and awareness levels and behaviour pattern of targeted communities

Association of BCC Module Roll-Out in SHG meetings with changes in complementary feeding and dietary diversity among children (6–23 months)? Evidence from JEEViKA in Rural Bihar, India

Objectives Child dietary diversity is very low across rural communities in Bihar. Based on the experience of behavior change communication (BCC) module roll out in self-help group (SHG) sessions in rural Bihar, this study aims to assess the impact of the intervention on child dietary diversity levels in the beneficiary groups. Methods The study is based on a pre-post study design whereby child dietary diversity is examined for a sample of 300 children (6–23 months old from 60 village organizations) during both pre-intervention as well as post-intervention phase. The latter consists of two types of group viz. a) children whose mothers were directly exposed to BCC module in SHGs sessions and b) those who were non-participants but may have indirect exposure through spillovers of BCC activities. Econometric analysis including logistic regression as well as propensity score matching techniques are applied for estimating the changes in dietary diversity in the post-intervention phase. Results During the pre-intervention phase, 19% of the children (6–23 months) had adequate dietary diversity (eating from at least 4 out of 7 different food groups) and this increased to 49% among the exposed group and to 28% among the non-exposed group in the post-intervention phase. The exposed group have an odds ratio of 3.81 (95% CI: 2.03, 7.15) for consuming diverse diet when compared to the pre-intervention group. The propensity score matching analysis finds a 33% average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) for the group participating in BCC sessions at SHG events. Conclusion BCC roll out among SHG members is an effective mode to increase dietary diversity among infants and young children. The impact on child dietary diversity was significantly higher among mothers directly exposed to BCC modules. The BCC module also improved knowledge and awareness levels on complementary feeding and child dietary diversity. </jats:sec

Sensitivity analysis based on alternative estimators for the ATT effects for child dietary diversity.

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Sensitivity analysis based on alternative estimators for the ATT effects for child dietary diversity.

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Propensity score overlap plot for treated and comparison group.

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Logistic regression results, child dietary diversity (5 out of 8 groups).

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Logistic regression results, child dietary diversity (4 out of 7 groups).

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Logistic regression results, child dietary diversity excluding knowledge and preference score.

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Mean consumption of various food groups by SC-ST and Others during pre- and post-intervention survey, Rural Bihar 2017.

Mean consumption of various food groups by SC-ST and Others during pre- and post-intervention survey, Rural Bihar 2017.</p