I am fortunate to be accompanied on this trip by Ms. Anna Larsen, program assistant extraordinaire at PATH. Anna applied for an ONP grant (Opportunities for New Professionals) from PATH to come to Cambodia and learn some evaluation skills by working with me on this project. Anna is amazingly good at her job, very bright, enthusiastic, and overall a really good time to travel with. In addition, to the evaluation work, we have discovered we are well-matched shopping partners and have been throwing it down in the Russian market in Phnom Penh. After day 1 in the field we realized we needed hats so we bought matching one at the market. The top zips off and it doubles as a visor...totally ridiculous but yet so useful.
This is my second trip to Cambodia and once again I am reminded how much I really enjoy working in this area of the world. It is the hottest time of year in Cambodia; at the tail end of the dry season, directly preceding the rainy season. On a recent day in the field, temperatures soared over 40 degrees Celsius (approximately 104 Fahrenheit). Needless to say it is very hot and humid and I basically have not stopped sweating since I got here...yuck. Lucky for me, both hotels we have stayed at thus far have swimming pools. Life saver!! |
| Countryside in Kampong Speu |
Our pilot was in Kampong Speu province (pronounced Kampong Spur) and ran from February to December of 2011. The pilot tested the sale of a ceramic water filter, The Super Tunsai (Tunsai = rabbit in Khmer = lucky), through a micro finance institution (MFI) that issued small loans for the purchase of the water filter. Interestingly, a version of a ceramic water filter (the Tunsai) has been on the market in Cambodia for well over a decade but never achieved appreciable levels of penetration on the Cambodia market. In our previous evaluations we found that 4-6% of households in the study area were using a ceramic water filter. During the pilot phase we tested the hypothesis that households may not like the filter that has been around for a decade and they may not be able to afford it without a financing mechanism. The original product, the Tunsai, and the redesigned product, Super Tunsai can be seen and read about here: http://www.hydrologichealth.com/category/social-marketing/. If interested, please watch this You Tube video clip of the country-wide commercial released for the promotion of Super Tunsai. While marginally patriarcical, in my opinion, the commercial appears to have blanketed awareness of the new product across our pilot area.
As mentioned, this is the most successful of the nine pilots we launched through the Safe Water project. On an endline evaluation in November we showed that uptake of a ceramic water pot increased from 6% at baesline to 43% among microfinance clients and 21% of the general populations in Kampong Speu. We are very pleased with these results and feel that partnering with a microfinance institution allowed households to afford a $22 water filter that they normally could not afford without financing. Interestingly, when the two filters were sold side by side the Super Tunsai outsold the regular Tunsai 3 to 1 despite is price that was nearly double the original Tunsai; $22 compared to $12.50. I guess people in this area really did prefer the new and improved product option. Perhaps the best news about this pilot is after it ended in December both partners signed an agreement to scale-up to other provinces in the country without PATH's assistance which is what you would hope for as the NGO assisting with implementation of the project.
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| Interview of a MFI client with a Super Tunsai in her home |
Because of the success of this pilot we decided to do an additional round of evaluation to take a closer look at why the pilot was so successful which brings us to the current purpose of the trip. Anna and I are here conducting an assessment to take a closer look into the MFI pilot model. Specifically we are conducting a quantitative and qualitative assessment to learn about client perceptions and quality of life improvements since households took the microfinance loan to purchase the Super Tunsai. For the last two weeks we have been focused on launching the quantitative assessment among 1000 rural households in Kampong Speu province. Tomorrow we start work with a different research firm to start the qualitative assessment. From this assessment we are interested in learning more about what people like/dislike about the Super Tunsai and why they may not have wanted to take the loan when they attended a meeting to hear about it.
So, far things are going well and it is fun to be on a project learning about the successes (as opposed to the failures). Both local research firms we are working with are well-qualified making our job a little easier. I am a bit behind on blogging this trip but plan on a few more within the next week. Stay tuned....
