This thesis has three objectives as follows: 1) to investigate VIP latrine design and establish if the communal school VIP latrines located on the shared campus of Tubman Wilson Institute (TWI) Junior and Senior High School and J.C. Barlee Elementary School were properly designed and constructed, 2) to explore the user preferences and motivations impacting the adoption of these school latrines, and 3) to develop a framework for factors that influence latrine adoption. These goals were formed by the author in response to her Peace Corps experience working at a high school in Zwedru, Liberia from August 2012 to August 2014 and her personal background in appropriate sanitation and environmental engineering. To complete the first thesis objective, the author conducted a detailed literature review and then compared accepted guidelines for VIP latrines to the sanitation facilities located on the TWI campus. The literature review investigated proper design of ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrines, school sanitation guidelines, and recommendations for sanitation in Liberia. The research focus latrines were two blocks of six stall multicompartment alternating twin-pit VIP latrines. The author conducted observations of the communal school latrines in order to compare the design and construction of these specific latrines to accepted criteria and recommendations from literature. It was found that the latrine vent pipes, cover slabs, drop holes, and pit design all appear to be designed and constructed per national Liberian and international recommendations. However, the TWI school latrines do not comply with standards for several other latrine design criteria. The latrine superstructures are built with privacy walls located in front of the boys’ and girls’ stalls and the entranceway doors do not have air gaps. These two features may impair critical odor-controlling air flow from the superstructure through the pit and out the vent pipe. The siting of the school latrines is also inconsistent with guidelines as the latrines are located too close to the classroom building and to the school’s water pump. Finally, the ratio of people to latrines on the shared TWI/J.C. Barlee campus is higher than the recommendation of 20-40 students per latrine, or when necessary 60 students per latrine. The second research objective was to investigate user perceptions of the communal latrines and identify factors that motivate latrine adoption on the Liberian school campus. The design deficiencies identified in the evaluation of thesis objective one were found to impact the user preferences regarding the school latrines. This is apparent from user comments in the surveys that were conducted with 709 participants (students from grades four to twelve, administrators, faculty, and staff) at the study site. User perceptions of the cleanliness, safety, and comfort of the school facilities were varied. For example, 51% of total respondents (n = 709) expressed that the school latrines were dirty or very dirty, while 48% claimed the latrines were clean or very clean. When asked about the safety of the communal latrines, 52% of survey participants said the sanitation facilities were not safe or very unsafe; 47% asserted that the latrines were safe or very safe. Survey participants also had mixed responses about the comfort of the communal sanitation technology: 51% of the 709 survey participants stated that the latrines were not comfortable or very uncomfortable, while 46% declared the facilities were comfortable or very comfortable. The open-ended survey questions allowed respondents to comment on positive and negative aspects of the communal school VIP latrines. Again answers included various responses, but several key themes arose, including smell and odor, latrine construction components, presence of feces in and around the latrines, the use of the facilities by outside community members, and health impacts of latrine use. The final thesis objective was to develop a framework of the factors that impact adoption of communal school latrines. The author originally assumed that user preferences and latrine adoption were directly correlated, but survey results suggest that the two factors may be independently influenced. This is based on the usage rates, 77% total survey participants stating that they use the latrines and 88% of these affirmative respondents explaining that they use the latrines daily, multiple times a week, or weekly. Although these adoption rates are quite high, satisfaction rates for latrine cleanliness, safety, and comfort are merely 50%, as previously described. VIP latrine design factors, like odor control and door construction, and communal sanitation facility characteristics, such as operation and maintenance, may prompt latrine adoption. Individual user traits, such as age, gender, and type and availability of household sanitation technology appear to have a lesser impact on latrine adoption. However, the grade level of the student respondents may have played a role in their responses because of the methods in which the survey was administered and the common practice of cheating. Additional research should be conducted to further understand the factors that impact the adoption of communal sanitation facilities on school campuses. This study accomplished its three main research objectives, yet further research and practical applications must be applied to improve school sanitation in Liberia and worldwide.

Chapter 1 studies the electoral response to the Ghost Buildings program, a nationwide anti tax evasion policy in Italy which used innovative monitoring technologies to target buildings hidden from tax authorities. The difference-in-differences identification strategy exploits both variation across towns in the ex ante program scope to increase enforcement as well as administrative data on actual building registrations. Local incumbents experience an increase in their reelection likelihood as a consequence of the policy. In addition, these political returns are higher in areas with higher speed of public good provision and with lower tax evasion tolerance, implying complementarity among enforcement policies, government efficiency, and the underlying tax culture. Chapter 2 uses a road-level regression discontinuity design in Sierra Leone to study the impact of improvements in rural road infrastructure on agricultural markets. We show that the improved roads reduced the market prices of local crops. These price effects are stronger in markets that are further from major urban centers and in less productive areas. We also find that these price effects are reversed in areas with better cell phone penetration. We show that our empirical findings are consistent with a search cost framework a la Mortensen, but inconsistent with other models, such as Bertrand competition, bilateral bargaining, and Cournot oligopsony. Chapter 3 present results from a randomized controlled experiment designed to study the multiple margins through which value is passed from traders to agricultural producers in the presence of interlinked transactions. Consistent with other studies, we find limited price pass-through in response to an increase in the trader resale price. However, there is a large response in credit provision. We develop a model of interlinked transactions that highlights the substitutability of price and credit pass-through across markets, and verify its predictions empirically. Calibration suggests that to ignore margins of pass-through other than price has substantial implications for welfare analysis. / Economics

This dissertation considers how Western health interventions are incorporated in non-Western societies. It focuses specifically on ‘HIV Testing,’ a key strategy that emerged to fight the spread of HIV in the West and was later institutionalized globally and exported to other, very different parts of the world. The empirical object of study is the “3Cs,” the cluster of Western norms and ideals upon which global testing policy rests: (1) that it includes counseling, (2) that it be conducted with informed consent, and (3) that the test results be confidential. Employing several methods of field research, this project investigates how the rationalities and motivations of various actors at national and local levels affect the implementation of a key global AIDS intervention in Malawi, a high HIV prevalence, rural African setting. Fundamental differences between the West and sub-Saharan Africa form the basis of this inquiry as to how imported models fare when implemented outside of their context of origin. Towards that end, this study considers how three strata of social and institutional actors who inform the HIV Testing encounter in Malawi interpret, and put into practice, the same ideas: the Counseling and Testing Establishment (CTE), HIV Counselors, and rural Malawians. For the CTE, its proponents, the “3Cs” are Western, human rights imports that are worth defending formally, but not necessarily worth prioritizing in practice. For HIV Counselors, its implementers, knowledge of the “3Cs” as Western biomedical jargon distinguishes them from villagers, but places them in situations where the ethics of testing conflict with moral concerns they have for those whom they were trained to help; thus they adapt them in practice. And for rural Malawians, its beneficiaries, the “3Cs” have little inherent value, and are perceived largely as doing harm rather than good in their communities. Thus, the net contribution of this study is that the “3Cs” have no single meaning as a normative testing regime, but rather acquire (differential) meaning (and import) during their implementation. Indeed, unless policy makers and analysts know something about this, interventions developed from afar are unlikely to have their intended effects on the ground. / text

Demographic responses to environmental stress have long been hypothesized in classic population theory, though empirical analyses remain scarce and traditionally focus on aggregate units of analysis. With the growing concern over environmental degradation it remains an empirical question as to how, to what extent and in which spatial and temporal scales populations, especially in developing countries, are directly and indirectly affected by their immediate natural surroundings. This paper examines the link between fertility related behavior of women at the individual level and several environmental determinants across eight sub-Saharan West African countries. Data is pooled from georeferenced Demographic and Health Surveys (conducted 2001-2005) combined with long term climatic data and a time series of remotely sensed vegetation index spanning 23 years. Results consistently show little to no effect of immediate natural resources or gross land degradation on fertility related behavior, but that effects tend to become more pronounced in larger geographic scales. Despite data limitations these results call for improved theoretical specificity. Questions that need to be addressed, both theoretically and empirically, are at which spatial and temporal scales environmental pressures induce certain types of demographic responses. / text

The study is set to assess private actors participation in the global climate governance through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) adopted during the Kyoto Climate Conference of 1997 in Japan. The general aim of this thesis is to understand why there are so few CDM projects in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). The study is based on literature review of selected academic and policy documents, statistical analysis of CDM project distribution, and a questionnaire distributed to four respondents that include Tricorona, EcoSecurities, Vattenfall and Swedish Energy Agency to acquire relevant data. The data was analyzed by using descriptive statistics and the CDM project pipeline. The main conclusions of the study are: (1) the Kyoto Protocol did not place a binding commitment on industrialized countries as to how they should channel CDM investment in developing countries and; (2) the market incentive placed within the CDM did not take into consideration the historical and socioeconomic issues of poverty, poor infrastructural and institutional problems of Sub Saharan African countries in order to avoid the unequal distribution of projects. The study concludes with the recommendation that the post-2012 CDM era should create a new framework that will assist Sub Saharan African Countries in developing alternative energy, and in promoting green technology. The thesis equally recommends that the market mechanism should be enforced by a new political mechanism that will help to promote good governance, as well as upgrade the existing political institutions and infrastructural development in SSA.

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Research regarding youth involvement in physical fighting and suicidal ideation has been primarily conducted in western countries, such as the U.S., and limited information is available on this subject in sub-Saharan Africa. This study used data from the Global School-Based Student Health Survey (GSHS) to analyze the prevalence and correlates (i.e., bullying victimization, loneliness, having no friends, sadness, alcohol use, and drug use) of physical fighting and suicidal ideation among students, both boys and girls in Uganda. In this study, 10.1% of urban students and 15.2% of rural students reported engaging in both physical fighting and suicidal ideation. Rural students overall have a higher prevalence of physical fighting, being bullied, suicidal ideation, alcohol use and drug use when compared to urban students. Other risk factors vary among boys and girls in urban and rural settings. Gender and urban/rural differences indicate that interventions among boys and girls and urban and rural students should be adapted to address the needs of the specific groups.

<p> The objectives of this explorative case study investigated a multistakeholder conflict in Tanzania Africa, using stakeholder theory as the theoretical foundation. While stakeholder theory has evolved and gained prominence as a method for reviewing conflict resolution processes it was important to conceptualize any discrepancies that could establish a framework for resolving conflicts in practice and in strategy. The research design analyzed five factors of framing, reframing, managing, power and trust with four different stakeholders involved in higher education loan conflicts. The results of the study showed distinct differences compared to previous research findings focused on multistakeholder conflicts. One primary distinction was characterization of the conflicts followed other studies however the lack of motivation to change was complex. There was a strong risk aversion which blocked a link for long-term solutions. Though like other studies competitive, collaboration and coalition for managing the conflicts were identified, risk aversion precipitated an unpredictable mixture of these management processes. Furthermore power imbalances and trust were identified as important aspects of multistakeholder conflicts; however this study linked the impact of results when risk aversion is included in the conflict. Finally, like other studies barriers to a strong conflict resolution process were related to normative values. However, this study enhanced the impact of a lack of societal values for motivating stakeholders to include normative values. It is recommended that further research be conducted to explore the implications of the multistakeholder conflict resolution model. </p>

Despite the global progress made in improving health of people and increasing the life expectancy, Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be plagued by many health problems. Commercialization of health products from Sub-Saharan Africa presents opportunities to solve some of these health problems as well as generate economic returns. This thesis explored science based health product commercialization in sub-Saharan Africa through three studies. The objective was to identify opportunities and challenges facing health product commercialization in Sub-Saharan Africa. A qualitative case study approach was used and data collected using interviews. The first study involved looking at science based health product commercialization at a national level. Rwanda was chosen for this study. Thirty eight key informants selected from various institutions that form the health innovation system in Rwanda were interviewed. The results of the study show that opportunities exist in Rwanda for health product commercialization mainly because of the strong political will to support health innovation. However the main challenge is that there are no linkages between the actors involved in health innovation in Rwanda. The second study looked at health innovation at the level of a research institution. The Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) was studied where eight key informants were interviewed. The results show that KEMRI faced many challenges in its attempt at health product development, including shifting markets, lack of infrastructure, inadequate financing, and weak human capital with respect to innovation. However, it overcame them through diversification, partnerships and changes in culture. The third study looked at health technologies that are being developed in sub-Saharan Africa but have stagnated in laboratories. Thirty nine key informants were interviewed. A total of 25 technologies were identified, the majority being traditional plant medicines; other technologies identified included diagnostic tests and medical devices. Many of these technologies require further validation. Other key challenges to commercialization of these technologies that were identified included a lack of innovative culture amoung scientists and policy makers and lack of proof of concept funds including venture capital. Overall, this thesis identified opportunities for science based health commercialization in Africa, and also provides recommendations on how to overcome major challenges.