Comparative study on the influence of gender and social network on development aid projects with culturally different local backgrounds

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26703002
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Area studies
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Sakamoto Maiko 東京大学, 大学院新領域創成科学研究科, 准教授 (50431474)
• Research Collaborator: OGATA Ryuji ; SUZUKI Akiko ; TASHIRO Ai ; Mukhopadhyay Sudhin ; Bakshi Kasturi ; Roy Saswaty ; Ahmed Tofayel ; Akter Mahfuja
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 援助・地域協力 / コミュニティ・ディベロップメント / 公衆衛生 / 水 / ヒ素汚染 / ジェンダー / 社会ネットワーク

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In Bangladesh and India, arsenic contamination in underground water has been a serious problem. To mitigate the problem, aid agencies have installed alternative sources, but they were not always accepted by local people. In this study, the factors influencing women's water source selection by considering their gender in local culture as well as social network they belong to. Women are usually responsible for fetching drinking water in the regions. Major findings was that: aid agencies need to consider who is the hub in the community to disseminate information for their behavioral change to safe drinking water source. They often pay attention to a person in a higher position in a community, but what our study found is that the women who were not in a higher position and not salient are more important as the hub. This was confirmed in a quantitative manner by employing social network analysis and statistical analysis.

Free Research Field

土木計画学