Steady economic growth and large working-age populations are driving demand for bricks to support a decades long construction boom across South Asian countries. Coal-burning traditional brick kilns that operate in the informal sector produce the majority of these bricks and contribute substantially to global climate change and worsen local air quality.
We employed a multiphase, interdisciplinary, mixed-methods approach to identify solutions. In this paper, we first summarize past approaches and discuss the key barriers we identified to improving the industry, then we present the design, and results of a randomized pilot energy efficiency intervention designed to overcome barriers to improved kiln operation.
Extreme heat in combination with land-cover/land-use change (LCLUC) poses significant challenges for sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Climate change is increasing the duration, intensity, and frequency of extreme heat events throughout the region.
We use rich, spatially referenced data from the Performance Monitoring for Action (PMA) individual surveys with detailed information on childbearing preferences and family planning decisions. Building on recent advances in remote monitoring of seasonal agriculture, we construct multiple vegetation measures capturing different dimensions of growing season conditions across varying time frames. Overall, our findings suggest that, in some settings, women strategically respond to growing season conditions by adjusting fertility aspirations or family planning use.