4.2 Methodology
4.2.1 Semi-structured interviews with key
informants
A range of key informants were interviewed in a semi-structured
way, in order to get
a better idea of the different stakeholders in sanitation in
Cap-Haitien. The objectives were different for each organisation, but usually
included: the level of involvement
in sanitation; its capacities, assets, current and past projects;
its problems and possible
solutions; the relationships the organisation has with other
organisations from the public and private sector and NGOs; the way sanitation
is perceived and addressed.
The organisations interviewed were:
· The City Council, with Mr. Paul Calixte, deputy
Mayor, as they have built three public latrines in the city centre.
· The Ministry of Public Health and Population
(MSPP); partly with Dr. Robert Jasmin, head of the Ministry for the
Département du Nord, and partly with the seven technicians responsible
for sanitation. The MSPP used to be responsible for latrine construction and
latrine pit emptying some 15 years ago.
· The Délégation is the governing body
of the Département du Nord (North Re- gion). The researcher met the
Délégué (head of the Délégation) who is
aiming at coordinating the actions of all NGOs in the area.
· The local NGO GTIH (Groupement Technologie
Intermédiaire Haïti), with Wedner Saintidor, head of the
Cap-Haitien office. GTIH takes part in the EU-funded project, and is
supposed to be responsible for the sanitation part.
· The EPPLS (Entreprise Publique de Promotion de
Logements Sociaux), with Henry Claude Hilaire, which is an autonomous
organisation involved in social housing countrywide; they are also managing the
communal latrines in those housing es- tates.
· Through EPPLS, it was possible to get in contact
with bayakous, who are the people emptying latrines. A meeting was organised
at daytime, but it was not possible to meet them while they were working, as
they only work at night. The meeting was nonetheless useful to understand their
working conditions.
· The organisation FEKOKAP (Fédération
des Comités de Quartier de Cap-Haïtien), with Dr. Daniel Albert.
It is a federation of local area committees, and has fi- nanced some small
water & sanitation-related projects in the last years, including
7 public latrines throughout the city.
· The private company Jedco which is the only company
doing latrine pit emptying
in the city. The researcher met Jacques Pierre, local manager, on
two occasions.
· The private company SaniPlus was interviewed on the
phone as they do not have
an office in Cap-Haitien. They are involved in the management
of hospital haz- ardous waste, and it was thought that their business model
could be applicable to the project.
In addition, the researcher met representatives from various
CBOs. Only two of these
CBOs were currently doing activities related to sanitation, but
most of them were willing
to, presumably because they knew Oxfam had money to spend in this
area. The only
organisations even slightly involved in sanitation were ORCH
(Organisation pour la
rénovation du Cap-Haïtien) removing solid waste in
the city centre and UJDM (Union des Jeunes De Marchand) who renovated an old
public latrine. Other organisations interviewed included the Comité
Solidarité de Madeline (involved in social housing), Comité APUP
(involved in «road building» by buying solid waste) or Comité
Ti Marc (involved in cleaning drainage channels)
The interviews were semi-structured, meaning that the researcher
used a set of ques- tions or topics as a guide during the conversation, but the
questions were not formal:
the aim was also to let the interviewees speak by themselves,
so that they could express their own perceptions and problems. See Appendix B
on page 68 for an example of questions asked, in this case with the head of the
MSPP.
4.2.2 Field visits
Field visits were carried out in many areas of the city. The
objectives were:
· to analyse rapidly the existing sanitation
conditions in different areas; this in- cluded visible practices but also an
inspection of communal and public latrines, when possible.
· to identify physical constraints such as soil
conditions, water table proximity, wa-
ter availability, access, housing density, etc.
· to try to identify human constraints such as level
of poverty, access to services, etc. : during those visits, it was often
possible to meet a member of a local com- mittee who would act as a key
informant, leading to other key people in the area.
· using those results, divide the city in different
types of areas with regard to the possibilities and limitations for potential
sanitation solutions. By doing so, it would then be possible to try an
option as a pilot project in a given area, and then
if successful to replicate it in similar areas.
This division has not been made solely using the field visits
but also using feedback from the interviews, and experience from Oxfam staff;
as most of them are locals and have grown up in Cap-Haitien, their experience
and perception of the city has helped
the researcher.
4.2.3 The demand tool: household survey
Once this classification into different areas has been done, a
household survey has been undertaken in sample areas. The objectives were to
answer questions from this research and also to be useful to the local staff by
providing valuable information on current practices. Thus, the objectives
were:
· to have a better idea of current defecation and
associated practices (such as hand-
washing), and of the types of latrines currently in use.
· to get data on the possibilities for sanitation
marketing, which includes the level
of demand for improved products, the state of the current supply
chain and com- munication channels.
Questionnaire design
A first questionnaire was used as the basis for this survey,
coming from past surveys conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine (LSHTM); the ques- tionnaire was mainly aimed at gauging the demand
for improved latrine products and services, thus called «the demand
tool». It was altered to include specific objectives for this research.
The final questionnaire is included in Appendix G on page 82; before reaching
this form, it undertook several alterations, using comment from various people
including local Oxfam staff, the researcher's supervisor and academics from
LSHTM.
Its layout was prepared using forms already used by Oxfam.
It was decided to switch from closed questions to more open
questions, without hav- ing tickboxes matching possible answers; open questions
avoid influencing the respon- dent and allow the researcher to analyse the
results without having a fixed workframe in mind. The aim was not so much to
get proportions of people in a given situation as to
get meaningful answers, on which to reflect to build possible
solutions.
The final questionnaire comprises 5 sections:
Socio-demographic aspects, current defecation practices, latrine owners,
non-latrine owners, and economics. The respon- dents would answer either
section 3 (latrine owners) or 4 (non-latrine owners), which limited the total
time per interview to less than 20 minutes. The questionnaire comprised
an additional «Observations» part. The interviews
started with an opening statement in- troducing the researcher and the
assistant, explaining the aim of the study and asking politely whether selected
people would have 20 minutes to spare; a closing statement thanked them and
asked for additional comments or queries.
Questionnaire testing
The questionnaire was tested with some Oxfam staff members, and
subsequently in the field. The order of the questions appeared to be a
sensitive topic. It was decided to keep
the most sensitive questions for the end. Surprisingly, these
were about income and occupation, which seem to be quite sensitive with
Haitians: these questions had to be asked tactfully and sometimes with
explanations regarding their purpose. Conversely, asking about current
defecation practices was not perceived as offensive even by people who practise
open defecation; this may have been helped by the fact that the assistant
introduced herself as a Public Health Ministry worker, who are
known to deal with such
issues.
Another issue was about the different latrine types: the
original form included the question «Which type of latrine do you think is
best», which appeared to be a meaning- less question in Cap-Haitien:
either people had «a latrine», or they had none, as many thought that
only one type of latrine exists. Finally, a supplementary question was added
about public toilets: what respondents would think of one in the area, and how
much they could pay to go in one. It was added partly in order to assess their
willingness to pay
for sanitation, but partly because the local Water and Sanitation
engineer liked the idea
of communal or public toilets, obviously as they are easy options
from an engineering point of view.
Implementing the survey
The survey was conducted in four different zones, reflecting
the analysis described in Section 4.2.2: Bas-Ravine, Shada, Petite-Anse and
Mansui were surveyed. No zone was surveyed for the fifth type of area (better
quality housing) as it was felt that they were less of a priority. A total of
103 households have been interviewed, from 20 to 34 in each area depending on
the variety of responses. The choice of interviewees was restricted
to the heads of households only, in order to be able to ask
about intention to buy or household income. This restriction could have led to
a majority of male interviewees and thus a gender bias; however a previous
survey (Valdez, 2005) has shown that almost half of the heads of households are
women, which also appeared in this survey as 60%
of respondents were women.
The choice of households had to be random; however the limited
time of this study meant that it was not possible to adopt fully random methods
as recommended in hand- books such as Gosling and Edwards (2003). Instead, a
pseudo-random method was chosen, as advised by Oxfam staff, which seems a
common practice: starting from a central place in the area, the researcher
would follow a certain line and pick the tenth house (or fifth house in less
densely populated areas) on the right, then the tenth (resp. fifth) on the
left, and so on. This would be repeated in different directions, in order to
cover most of the area.
While the questionnaire was written in French to allow easy
analysis further on, the questions were asked in Creole, either by the
researcher for simple ones or by his as- sistant for more complex questions.
Most of respondents did not speak much French and gave their answers in Creole,
which could usually be understood by the researcher but were translated anyway.
All households were surveyed by the researcher and his assistant, without the
need for a team of interviewers.
Analysing the data and follow-up
Data was analysed using a simple spreadsheet. While making
statistics was useful, noting down key sentences said by respondents was
particularly useful to determine trends. Part of the analysis can be seen in
Appendix H.
During the survey, it was found that one of the areas (Mansui)
had benefited from
a USAID-funded latrine-building programme two years before,
and all beneficiaries of this programme who were interviewed during the survey
said they were dissatisfied with their latrine, for various reasons. It was
decided to investigate this further by interview- ing other USAID latrine
owners in the area. The whole questionnaire was too long to be used again; an
informal interview took place instead with available households, concen-
trating on how satisfied they were with their latrine and what were its
advantages and drawbacks.
4.2.4 Focus group discussion
Following the survey and consultation with Steven Sugden, it
was found that the area of Shada could be an interesting target area for a
product-service package design approach (see Section 5.4.3). Some more
in-depth study of the demand and real willingness to pay was required, and it
was decided to conduct a focus group discussion (FGD) in this area. Given the
time available, it was possible to carry out only one FGD, but more would be
necessary in order to get more meaningful results.
The objectives of this FGD were both to complete the survey's
shortcomings and to help design the product-service package:
· Know their aspirations: the survey only asked what
they would do first if they had a bit more income. While this gives an idea of
their immediate priorities, it
did not inform about their aspirations and values, which are
relevant to the way a product would be promoted.
· Know more about demand for improved products, and
their willingness to pay for
a particular product or service (in this case, for a low-cost
latrine and a regular emptying service).
· Address the constraint of space by asking which size
could be reasonably accom- modated by most households.
The questions asked can be seen in Appendix C on page 69.
During the survey, a woman was interviewed who belongs to a group called Fanm
pa chita («Women not sitting down»), a organisation of women who
remove mud and place cement blocks on
the ground during heavy rainfall. She was willing to show their
main defecation area and to explain her perception of the problems in the area.
For the FGD, the researcher
returned to her and asked if he could talk with a small group of
women from this organ-
isation. Nine women ended up taking part in the discussion, and
one man who «helps the organisation» came after twenty minutes. The
discussion lasted about 2 hours.
Two pitfalls had to be avoided during the FGD. The first was
to avoid «leading» the group, while still keeping the discussion
focused on the selected topics. The discus- sion actually started in
«led» way, but soon became a discussion within the participants with
minimal input from the researcher; this produced useful comments. The second
pitfall was to avoid being perceived as members of an NGO, as they are known to
pro- vide «everything for free», or at least this is the common
perception1; but in order to assess the willingness to pay, this
would have been problematic. At the beginning of the discussion, the researcher
introduced himself as «a student»2, yet at a given point
the participants understood he was working for an NGO and the change in
behaviour was quite marked: when asking about «a possible price for a
low-cost latrine», the price they suggested changed to a quarter of its
previous value after this «understanding».
4.2.5 Workshop with partner organisations
As part of the objective «putting forward
recommendations», it was considered useful during Steven Sugden's visit to
organise a workshop with partner organisations (Oxfam, GTIH and MSPP). The
workshop took place on two mornings with about 10 participants from these
organisations, mainly water and sanitation engineers and public health work-
ers. The main objectives were to define together the terms of
«sanitation», «sustainable» and «excreta
management» which appear in the EU project: its goal uses overused and
ambiguous, but fashionable, development phrases, which tend to be misunderstood
by partners; a second objective was to discuss current practices on sanitation
in Cap-Haitien and potential solutions.
In particular, engineers tended to see sanitation only as the
provision of drainage channels and sometimes solid waste management; very
little was known about latrines apart from «simple» construction
rules, inevitably leading to high-cost latrines, not even
to mention latrine marketing or promotion. It was felt that,
without getting these key people to understand the concepts behind sanitation
marketing, any recommendation would be lost and replaced by the
«usual» practice.
A range of tools was used during the workshops, including
computer presentations, active participation when drawing an
F-diagram3, debates between participants and
brainstorming. The outcomes were much more precise (and agreed)
definitions of «sus-
1 It was admitted by Haitians themselves, as some of
them claimed that «whenever there is an interna-
tional NGO, people come in the hope to get something for
free».
2 Which was also the common introduction during the
survey.
3 This is the common name for a diagram showing
possible transmission routes of faecal-oral diseases and ways to stop them;
participation was achieved by using wet toilet paper representing the faeces
and how they end up in water, on hands, etc.
tainable sanitation», yet it was felt that more work needs
to be done in order to internalise
these concepts.
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