Principal Investigator
• Dr. Abu S. Shonchoy
• Dr. Yuya Kudo
• Dr. Kazushi Takahashi
Project Area
Subdistrict: Rajibpur
District: Kurigram
Project Background
Project Description
With the Fund assistance from IDE-JETRO, Japan, and KOPERNIK, Indonesia “The Demand for and the Impact of Solar Lanterns in Northern Part of Bangladesh” started its journey in April 2013 by conducting rigorous school visits in the form of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). Visit to 28 schools and meeting with School Management Committees (SMCs) and teachers have produced a pool of around 2500 population’s short data set to choose potential samples among. Among the 2500 population, we have chosen 1292 samples to conduct a baseline survey (panel 1). Finally, after sorting out through rigorous scrutiny we have conducted a baseline survey for 911 households.
Shortly after conducting the baseline survey we engaged in package distribution among samples at each school we find 882 students concurring with our research objectives. We have 436 students under the control group, 248 under treatment arm 1 (Three solar lanterns), and 198 under treatment arm 2 (one solar lantern).
By collecting a total of six rounds health information using a Spiro-meter and other conventional instruments the project aims at the point-to-point impact of the package within different groups. In addition, six round-time diary collection provides usage record and impact the time management record of the targeted pupils.
Once a household gets access to electricity, a direct benefit is the higher level of lighting which helps children to have more hours of studying and adults to have more active hours, which could be useful for completing household chores and being engaged in productive activities, for example, keeping the home-based businesses remain open for longer hours or producing more outputs or being active with other production or income generating activities.