ONGOING PROJECT
“Impact of Energy efficient Pressure Cookers and Behavioural Nudges on LPG Usage, Time and Cost Savings to Promote Better Health in Tanzania”
Currently CBS is working on a collaborative research project, named, ‘NIHR Clean Air (Africa) Unit. Specifically, CBS in collaboration with the University of Liverpool is conducting a study titled, ‘Impact of Energy efficient Pressure Cookers and Behavioural Nudges on LPG Usage, Time and Cost Savings to Promote Better Health in Tanzania’.
CLEAN-Air(Africa) is a multi-national collaboration among seven research institutions from the UK and sub Saharan Africa: University of Liverpool (UoL, UK), CBS- University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Kenyan Medical Research Institute (KEMRI, Kenya), Moi University (Kenya), Douala General Hospital (Cameroon), Makerere University Lung Institute (Uganda) and Rwanda Biomedical Centre (Rwanda). Through this project, the Unit plans to implement a rigorous and diverse program of research and capacity building to tackle the global burden of disease from household air pollution (HAP) and accelerate adoption of clean cooking to address this burden under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) time horizon of 2030, focusing on developing and supporting strategies under SDG7 namely: “Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” in sub-Sahara Africa (SSA).
COMPLETED PROJECTS
Project 1: “Enhancing Tax Compliance in Semi-Formal Business Undertakings: A Field Experiment with Small and Medium Business Entities in Tanzania.”
The project aimed to test “smart interventions” to foster tax compliance. CBS collaborated with the Ministry of Finance and Planning, Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) and the Bank of Tanzania, and the National Bureau of Statistics to design and implement behavioural inspired interventions, which monitored and documented then figured out which ones worked and suitable for further scaling. The study employed the behaviour-centred approach to develop and test different variations of text messages with a view to understand the drivers of low tax compliance among presumptive taxpayers in Tanzania. Text messages is a low-cost and easily accessible communication avenue that the TRA uses to encourage tax compliance. Hence, the study designed and tested low-cost interventions to improve compliance through a randomized controlled trial (RCT) by examining the impact of different message settings and reminder intensity on the prospect of presumptive taxpayers coming to the TRA offices for re-assessment of the business activities before the annual deadline. The results showed that the sent text messages differ in effectiveness with regard to increasing the proportion of businesses that meet the deadline for tax re-assessment, with the repeated deterrence message being the most effective.
Project 2: “Bringing back the dormant tax payers: The role of behavioural interventions.”
The project followed as a phase II of the previous tax project. The is study’s objective was to produce research-informed recommendations for the government and TRA in particular, about the means tax payer drop-outs could be reinstituted in tax assessment process, and thus the suitable tax payer’s retention mechanism. So the purpose was to explore what kind of text message design is most effective in bringing tax payers out of dormancy. Specifically, it investigated the impact of specific text message reminders (to the existing presumptive taxpayers) on Tax payers doing something (either reassess, or close their business, depending on their status), or showing up for re-assessment alone or coming to officially file business closure to TRA. A randomized controlled trial with a sample of 55,324 dormant businesses stratified by region (15 regions) and tax bracket (4 brackets) and randomly assigning businesses to 6 equal groups was conducted. Results show that on average, regardless of the type of reminder sent, treatment increased the share of dormant taxpayers showing up either for re-assessment or filing a business closure. Looking into the role various text message designs, invitation to talk with TRA officials had the highest impact followed by both deterrence treatment and active choice (i.e. continued dormancy will henceforth be translated by TRA as deliberate action).
Project 3: “Technical Support on design and implementation of process and impact evaluation of Sanitation Projects”
The ProjectCLEAR together with London School of Health and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) developed and implemented a behaviour change campaign for the Tanzanian government to support the National Sanitation Campaign, which aims at increasing coverage of improved latrines and improving domestic handwashing practice. CBS in collaboration with ProjectCLEAR and LSHTM conducted a process evaluation on the Scaling of up Total Sanitation and Sanitation Marketing and Hand Washing with Soap Nyumba ni Choo project to gauge the impact of this innovative campaign, both for the purposes of continuing to innovate and improve, and to provide lessons for other countries.