The Lesotho Case Study

Step 1: Facts

• • Lesotho is a small developing country
  • You are a group of 10 researchers
  • You have 2 weeks to conduct research
  • You are looking for pathogens in the water sources
  • Your team requires community assistance to locate water sources
  • Your goal is to produce publications
  • Chemical additives may be produced as a result of your publications
  • Assumption: locals will be willing to help your team
  • Ethical issue: Is your current research plan ethical?
  • It is ethical as you are not strictly requiring anything of the Lesotho people, you are only asking for their help and your research does not directly involve them. With this said, there are solutions to make it more fair to the Lesotho communities as our team will benefit from the experience and we have knowledge that can benefit the locals.

Steps 2 and 3: Stakeholders and Motivations

• Your team of researchers
  • want the best possible outcome of their study (most data possible) to satisfy your sponsors and produce helpful papers
  • efficiently find participants to take you to water sources and maximize your time
  • make study ethical for all involved
• Participants in the study
  • offer assistance to a project that could positively impact their community
  • Make new acquaintances that could provide useful knowledge 
  • Have the potential for safe drinking water
• Sponsors
  • Results through the source of publications that show their investment was valuable
  • Maintain or increase their reputation 
  • Stay within the timeline they are sponsoring the team for
• University
  • Care about their reputation and return on investment (much like the sponsors)
  • Want the study to stay within budget
• Lesotho Government
  • keep their people safe
  • Improvement in the society/community long and short term
  • Protect natural resources (water)

 

Step 4: Solutions

This case study was broken down into two main categories that solutions fell into: choosing participants and paying participants.

Choosing Participants

• 1. Contact local health leaders
  • Explain your reason for coming and need for a guide over phone or email
  • Pros
    • You can be more easily received in country as you have contacts who know you are coming
    • You can have a local participant ready for you right as you arrive
  • Cons
    • Health leaders might not be concerned with water gathering, they will most likely provide you with a competent individual, but they might not be specialized in what you are looking for
  • Ethical principle: duty-based thinking, it is your job as a researcher to be as prepared as possible
• 2. Contact local community leaders
  • Explain your reason for coming and need for a guide in person
  • Pros
    • A community leader is in tact with the local population and will have a good sense of who fits your research needs
  • Cons
    • These people will most likely only be reachable in person and will take time in country for you to speak to them
    • You will also have to wait for the community to elect someone to help your team
  • Ethical principle: virtue-based thinking, it is the right choice to take step towards finding the best person for the job
• 3. Ask locals in country
  • Once in country, you can spot someone carrying a water bucket that you might want to help you find a research spot
  • Pros
    • The locals are the ones who collect water, so they will surely know a perfect spot for you to research or at least be able to find someone who does
  • Cons
    • This again takes more time as it has to be done in person
  • Ethical principle: virtue-based thinking, it is the right choice to take step towards finding the best person for the job

Paying Participants

Our team felt that it would be more ethical to offer the Lesotho communities something in return for their help as we will be benefiting directly from the research and they might not.

 

• 1. Pay the participants monetarily
  • Pay whoever is involved in your process of finding the water source you need
  • Pros
    • The locals will be more eager to get you what you desire
    • You will be helping someone who is more likely than not financially insecure
  • Cons
    • This use of money is coming from your sponsors who might not have approved this action
    • You are only helping a few individuals which is insignificant in relation to the total population that needs aid
    • It is uncertain that the money will be used by the individual in a helpful way
  • Ethical principle: virtue-based thinking, it is right to reward someone for helping you in a way that will benefit you
• 2. Provide incentives other than money
  • Offer clean bottled water or water filtering products
  • Pros
    • The locals will be more eager to get you what you desire
    • Your aid is directly related to water security and ensures your incentives are going to help keep some people safe
  • Cons
    • This again is a use of funds that might not be authorized as it is not necessary to the research
    • You are only helping a few individuals although the effect is greater than money
  • Ethical principle: virtue-based thinking, it is right to reward someone for helping you in a way that will benefit you
• 3. Educate the participants
  • Anyone who volunteers to help you will be more than happy to learn from you. You can describe to them that something dangerous is in the water and there are methods to prevent it like filtration and boiling. This can be relayed by the participant to the rest of their community.
  • Pros
    • You are promoting developments in water security to this developing country
    • You are directly helping decrease disease spread on a larger scale than with any amount of products you could provide
    • Knowledge is free to spread
  • Cons
    • The only way this works is if the participant actually comprehends and is able to convey the ideas to their community
    • This takes away time from our data collection
  • Ethical principle: consequence-based thinking, this is one of the most positive outcomes possible

 

Step 5: Additional Assistance

 

Further research led our team to find more facts:

• Lesotho is the main source of water for parts of east africa
  • This pathogen problem will affect more than the surrounding area
  • Also, any knowledge given to the Lesotho about water security can be transferred to their customers
• Vulnerable to political disputes in south africa
• Droughts are common
  • This makes water even more precious
• Waterborne diseases are common and infant mortality rate is high because of this
  • The Lesotho currently do not have adequate water safety techniques and could benefit greatly from our knowledge

 

Step 6: Best Course of Action

 

The best course of action is to contact local health workers and educate participants about water safety. 

By contacting local health workers, our entrance into Lesotho can be easy as we have contacts expecting our arrival. The health workers can be contacted prior and select participants to help us find water sources so that we do not have to do so. This saves time spent searching for help and can maximize our time actually doing research. Although the participant provided might not be as well versed in the water source locations, they will still be able to find adequate locations. We are willing to sacrifice finding a perfect location for being able to get as much data as possible.

The other options of talking to people in country took too much time. Our sponsors and our team are focused on results, and it is necessary to make the most out of our time.

By educating the participants about water safety, we are directly aiding the cause we are researching. We could give information about filtration and boiling to protect the water from pathogens. This person can then relay the information to their community. We are traveling to various communities, and the information can spread very fast if done correctly.

The other options were very monetary, and money was not really at our discretion. Sponsors do not want to spend more money than they need to, and minimizing costs would be best. This option satisfies our sponsors, but also satisfies the Lesotho by giving them an opportunity to prevent disease and make their communities more secure.

Step 7: Implications

Educating the locals about their water issues and ways to protect themselves from these pathogens almost guarantees to help the people with the water issue specifically. Lesotho can continue progressing their water safety and spread their knowledge to other regions. This aids in the development of their country into a safer and more stable region. 

As for the stakeholders, our team’s goals will be fulfilled as we have maximized our team and research to the best of our ability and made our project more ethical. Our sponsors and universities will be pleased as we have concluded our research in time and will produce papers with no unexpected monetary costs. The people of Lesotho and their government will hopefully experience the positive impacts of our pathogen knowledge and the solutions we have provided, increasing their water security and making their country a safer, more developed place.

Although this solution is the best out of what was put forth, it still can have negative implications. Our team will be taking time out of our research to educate the Lesotho participants, and while this might not be too much time, it is still time away from our real goal of collecting data. Also, the impact we are trying to make is solely dependent on the participant to be able to understand and convey the knowledge to others. If our participant does not follow our vision, disease will continue to spread and our educational efforts will be for naught. Finally, since we are not hand picking our participant it is not certain that we will be taking samples from the perfect water sources. Although this does maximize our time, it is still a possible source of error in our data.