Cultural Factors affecting Sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa

A B S T R A C T

Enormous amounts of resources are spent by humanitarian organizations each year in an attempt to improve sanitation conditions in the developing world. Despite decades of efforts by western aid workers to intervene in sub-Saharan Africa, the results of these investments are lacking. This paper introduces cultural factors as an under-studied dimension of why international aid projects may produce lackluster results and asks the question: how do cultural differences between Sub-Saharan communities and western engineers affect humanitarian aid projects designed to improve sanitation conditions? The following article applies quantitative scoring methods developed by cultural theorist Geert Hofstede to understand social factors relevant for project managers working in this region. The report presents three cultural considerations that engineering teams should consider incorporating in order to make the implementation of sanitation development projects in sub-Saharan Africa more successful in the future.

View full paper at: Sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa