My independent research has revolved around the politics of development and foreign aid, including development and aid effectiveness measurements. Meanwhile my practitioner research has looked largely at the sanitation sector to help push us forward in creating safely managed sanitation solutions globally.

I have been particularly interested in the political choices that drive decisions concerning both aid project evaluation at the micro level and development measurements at the macro level, as well as expanding micro-level development theory concerning the role and incentives of local actors in development projects. To this end, my work has always been informed by interdisciplinary literature on development, institutions, organizations, effectiveness studies, and the political economy of evaluation/measurement. I have done field work in the Philippines, Washington D.C., Costa Rica, and Mauritius, as well as public opinion surveys with U.S. and Indian populations.

Summaries of some projects are given below. For my CV, please contact me at jrogla@gmail.com or through the Contact Page.

Publications

Roglà, J. (Forthcoming).  “Agency and the Global South: The Power of Local Actors in International Development Cooperation.” In T. Lembe (ed), The Agency of the Global South in International Politics. New York, USA: Palgrave Macmillan.

• International development practices have undergone substantial change over the past two decades. Changes are in part driven by the rise of powerful nonstate donors with innovative financing models and transparency demands, and recipient-turned-donor states like China who challenge traditional Western aid models and jeopardize the hegemony of long-established donors. I argue these macro pressures have amplified the power local actors hold in development cooperation. Donors have moved away from fungible aid given to recipient governments, taking a more ‘local’ turn via participatory approaches where community-level beneficiaries identify needs and apply for funds. Underlying this turn is the idea that recipient-led projects will create more sustainable outcomes, revealing the power donors believe locals have over aid effectiveness. This power, however, is not yet accounted for in political analyses of international development, where the focus is on the donor. Nevertheless, local actors’ power is likely to increase over time given the growing pressure on aid agencies to improve transparency and effectiveness. Based on 35 interviews in Costa Rica, the Philippines and Washington, D.C., with multilateral, bilateral, and NGO aid practitioners and their local partners, I provide evidence of the ways that local actors exercise power over donors, employing a four-part power classification proposed by Wrong (2017) to illustrate. This evidence also shows that when locals use their power, the consequences can range from simple project adjustments to prison time and the content of project evaluations is unclear, posing new challenges for development aid effectiveness under this ‘local’ approach.

• Research Assistant: Jesúa Reyna Méndez

Abdel Sattar, R., Roglà, J., Toeur, V., Kozole, T., Nicoletti, C., Harper, J. (2024). Effects of Climate Vulnerability on Sanitation Access, Sanitation Infrastructure Functionality and Households’ Sanitation Practices in Rural Cambodia. Environment, Development and Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-024-04881-2 

• With climate events increasing in frequency and severity, effects on human life, particularly those most vulnerable, are projected to increase in coming decades. Focusing on the effects of floods, storms, and drought, we investigate how climate vulnerability correlates with toilet dysfunction and abandonment in rural Cambodia using two household surveys, a latrine sales database, two flood-extent maps, and a composite climate vulnerability index. Using multiple linear regression and measures of association, we show that together and individually, increasing climate vulnerability and poverty correlated with increasing toilet abandonment. Toilet dysfunction occurred more frequently in flood-prone regions during the rainy season and increased with more household members. How living in flood-prone regions affected households’ perceptions, practices, and experiences with sanitation was also characterized in detail. The results highlight the need for more scientifically rigorous evidence to improve climate-resilient toilet designs that provide access to a functional toilet year-round. Beyond technology, household behavior towards and maintenance of sanitation infrastructure is a critical concern, as unsafe practices were found to be more common among climate-vulnerable households. The sanitation sector, particularly including government, should focus on improving access to safely managed sanitation in rural communities, particularly ones who are most affected by climate change, to prevent pollution of natural resources and further protect public health.

Kozole, T., Ross, M., Nicoletti, C., Roglà, J., Ives, N., Ali, A., Ratsamnang, P. (2023). Impact of Targeted Subsidies on Access to Resilient Sanitation for Climate-Vulnerable Households in Rural Cambodia. Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development, washdev2023039. https://doi.org/10.2166/washdev.2023.039

• Access to safe sanitation is a basic requirement for human well-being and is critical for protecting public health and preventing environmental contamination at the community level. The increasing global risk of climate-related disasters exacerbates the likelihood of traditional sanitation solutions failing and exposing communities to harmful pathogens. This risk is ubiquitous in Cambodia's flood-prone Tonle Sap Lake region, which has some of the lowest rates of sanitation coverage in the country. This study sought to design and test a targeted mechanism in the region to deliver sanitation subsidies to households in a vulnerable position due to climate and socioeconomic characteristics. Subsidy eligibility was evaluated using the poverty probability index for Cambodia, with thresholds set according to households' individual and community-level climate vulnerability. In a randomized controlled trial, offering subsidies increased the likelihood of successful sales conversions for climate-resilient latrine products among targeted households by 32 percentage points, indicating effectiveness for increasing market-based sanitation uptake. The research did not find evidence of widespread or sustained market distortion due to the subsidy program.

Harper, J., Abdel Sattar, R., Kozole, T., Toeur, V., Roglà, J., Ross, M., Ives, N., Pruitt, H., Soneja, P., Capone, D. (2023). Microbial Hazards in Real-world Alternating Dual-Pit Latrines Treated with Storage and Lime in Rural Cambodia. Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development, washdev2023016. https://doi.org/10.2166/washdev.2023.016 

• Achieving safely managed sanitation (SMS) in rural areas has spurred innovation in toilet designs that provide on-site treatment of fecal sludge (FS), including the development of International Development Enterprise (iDE)’s alternating dual-pit latrine upgrade (ADP). ADPs treat FS by inactivating pathogens using storage treatment with lime; however, ADPs’ reduction in pathogenicity (and thus their associated public health benefit) has not yet been described in real-world pits at scale. We thus enumerate the fecal indicator bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli) and fecal coliforms in 147 pits after two years of storage treatment with lime and compare detected concentrations to relevant standards. E. coli and fecal coliform concentrations indicated a risk to human health in 31% and 42% of sampled pits, respectively. Regression models described relationships between fecal indicator bacteria concentrations and measured factors (e.g., sludge pH, temperature) but did not reveal any meaningful associations. High rates of pit ineligibility also indicate that many ADPs are not operated as recommended. Results indicate a one-in-three chance that a household emptying their own pit would be exposed to health hazards and call into question the effectiveness of the standard two-year storage treatment in real-world applications. To improve rural SMS, various evidence-based recommendations are made.

Roglà, J. (2022). “Navigating the Ethics of Human Subjects Research.” In R.J. Huddleston, P. James, & T. Jamieson (eds), The Handbook of Research Methods in International Relations. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.

• What are the main ethical concerns in research and how do we navigate them? This chapter is meant to guide researchers to answer these two questions and encourage reflection on them in their studies. In Part I, I will identify those main ethical concerns. In Part II, I will discuss how to address these concerns during the research design process to avoid exploiting your participants. In Part III, I will give guidance on navigating formal ethics approval processes, including determining any additional ethics requirements you are subject to in other countries and indigenous lands. In Part IV, I will discuss ethics in the field, such as recruitment, how to think through the issue of researcher positionality, exceptions to confidentiality, and the ethics of website/social media posts about your research. In Part V, I will discuss some final reminders when describing your results to reinforce informant protections.

• Final Chapter Draft - PDF

MacArthur, J., Sattar, R. A., Carrard, N., Kozole, T., Nicoletti, C., Riley, L., Roglà, J., Toeur, V., & Willetts, J. (2022). Six principles to strengthen qualitative assessments in development interventions. Development in Practice, 11.

• Qualitative research and evaluation is often described as an art rather than a science. This intangible nature has left many programme teams feeling uncertain about how to justify and use qualitative forms of assessment in their monitoring, evaluation, and learning practice. Existing guidance is theoretically based and often focused on applications in the Global North. Building on an expressed need for guidance from a community of practice in Asia and the Pacific, this collaborative action research process aimed to create practical and tested guidance for programme teams. The analysis was conducted as part of a Cambodia-based sanitation programme assessment. Drawing from literature and the collaborative process, we propose a set of six principles to guide insightful, practical, and robust qualitative assessments. We provide examples regarding how the principles can be used to plan, conduct, and review qualitative assessments with a goal to strengthen the future use of qualitative tools in programming.

Under Review

Harper, J., Abdel Sattar, R., Kozole, T., Toeur, V., Roglà, J., Ross, M., Ives, N., Pruitt, H., Soneja, P., Capone, D. (Under Review). Household Perceptions, Practices, and Experiences with Real-world Alternating Dual-Pit Latrines Treated with Storage and Lime in Rural Cambodia.

Previous Projects