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Identifying barriers to the adoption of specific domestic energy strategies - a new assessment tool
[top] [end]What is an ‘assessment tool’?This article presents the use of a new assessment tool to assist the design of any development or emergency intervention.The assessment tool is useful in two ways:
It is called a ‘tool’ because it can be used by a field team, with a small amount of support from a sociologist who helps to get the format of the formal questions correct. It comprises a set of formal questions which depend on the statements made during a general survey. There is always the same structure to find out very precisely about people’s beliefs, values, social influences and behaviour. This new assessment tool is called the TORA, and in the case study below, it was used to find out the particular beliefs which were stopping people from adopting specific domestic energy strategies within displaced communities in Northern Ghana. [top] [end]Why people should use the TORAThe new tool describes the links between beliefs, social influences and behaviour. It helps find out the most effective way of introducing an intervention by looking at the social attitudes that may affect why people do things and who can influence them. Participatory surveys are usually used to ask the questions: What – Where – When – How – and Who? For example, consider wood collection:
This new tool adds a process to reveal why things are done.
For example, in an open survey – someone might say that they think that ‘a persons life is connected to the life of any tree he or she plants’. Within a group discussion, everyone might appear to agree with this statement. But if the person who made the comment is very influential, it is hard to know whether everyone else is being polite because he is an elder, or whether that belief is really at the root of their behaviour. Is it a belief that is so strong that it affects the behaviour of the majority of the population, and is the eldership really influencial on that issue? [top] [end]How does this help with development planning?This is best illustrated from the project itself. The project was undertaken in an area of Ghana with an environment which is very sensitive to change. There are many households internally displaced, due to ethnic conflict in 1994. Although the area has seen a number of initiatives in improved stoves and woodlot planting, encouraged by Government and Non-Government agencies, these have had limited success.To make the tool work well, the way people live must be carefully understood to ensure that activities undertaken are appropriate. A non-focused enquiry into a community’s behaviour will not produce the desired results in a short period of time. Seven different activities were identified as key to domestic energy and three were analysed closely, as they were seen to be critical to fuel wood management. The three were:
[top] [end]Insights to help planning?An important finding of the TORA was that, under the right circumstances, displaced people were actually more likely than local people to adopt sustainable fuelwood practices. Decisions on whether to adopt improved methods are influenced by what is seen to be acceptable by the community, rather than by people working out benefits for themselves. Also displaced people are less willing to adopt new practices in the kitchen, but as a community, they are willing to try new external interventions, such as woodlot planting (Figure 1).
The improved stoves being promoted have a number of technical difficulties. Cooking practices in Northern Ghana are characterised by large pots that must be stirred aggressively during the cooking process. This often breaks the proposed improved stoves. Also much of the extension work had been targetted at women (understandably). However the TORA revealed that few if any women would change their way of cooking without asking both their husband and their mother in law. Agencies are working on new solutions and will try to ensure that the men are also kept informed about new cooking options.
[top] [end]The most important key barrierHowever, there was still no widespread response to improving the environment. In particular, foraging for fuelwood was an issue that had not been addressed by agencies. This offered the best potential for a change in people’s activities that was quick, easy and cost effective.The TORA identified that all communities have a strongly held belief that they will always have areas from which to collect firewood. Communities are generally aware of extension messages about the destruction of biomass resources, which they hear on the radio, from extension workers, and from posters. However, they more strongly believe that God will not allow them to go without firewood. (Note, These statements are not specific to particular religions, the communities are Islamic, Christian and Animist.) They believe that there will always be wood for their children. There is an overriding perception that there will not be a problem with future access to firewood. These beliefs are at the core of people’s attitude towards the issue of fuelwood and the environment. The TORA demonstrated that a linkage exists between these key beliefs and activities which damage the environment. However, feedback from most of those working in the field is that people are willing to discuss the inconsistencies in what they believe. They know that ‘ God does let bad things happen, their lives are full of sorrow’. So they face the disparity and answer it consciously in the light of their world experience. They are then prepared to consider ways to modify their behaviour to take it into account, not through outside influences, but through their own understanding. The TORA also shows that the channel used for each message is as critical as the message itself. Since most decisions are made as a group, joint consultation should be carried out, educating should be done mostly in groups, and involvement of key members is key to gaining approval. So having identified these key barriers, educational messages can be more targeted. Most of the agencies working in Northern Ghana have come together to target these beliefs. A workshop was held to discuss the findings of the TORA and many of the recommendations rang true with field workers. Together, workers created flipcharts (as shown in Box 1), dramas (as shown in Box 2), radio messages and discussions that tackled the themes of future access to fuelwood. Over 20 different agencies have incorporated the findings of the TORA into their work and in August 2001 an impact evaluation will take place.
[top] [end]Lessons learnedAlhough the TORA has been used in many areas of business before in the North, this is one of the first times the tool has been used for development purposes in the developing world. Given that demonstrating TORA as a rapid assessment tool was the purpose of the project, we can now say that with the correct approach to the process it yields the required outcomes. The tool is particularly useful where development interventions are being undertaken. In these cases it can help identify where barriers lie, and target the intervention more effectively. It explains why people are doing the things they do, and identifies how one can create educational messages to address the core barriers so that people can think about and discuss the core issues.[top] [end]Download the original article Identifying barriers to the adoption of specific domestic energy strategies - a new rapid assessment tool by Dr Simon Batchelor, Dr Kevin McKemey and Dr O Sakyi Dawson (119 KB)[top] [end]Contents: Boiling Point 46 - Household energy and the vulnerable
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10 July 2007; Last edited:
10 July 2007; Version: 0 | |||||||||||||||
Pagename: IdentifyingBarriersToTheAdoptionOfSpecificDomesticEnergyStrategies-ANewRapidAssessmentTool @HEDON: QQFA | |||||||||||||||
