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Community self-mobilisation to end open defecation

With the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach, communities analyse their sanitation conditions, understand the impact of open defecation on health and the environment, and take collective action to end open defecation (OD). In more than 20 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, CLTS emphasises collective behaviour change, community participation and local ownership.

The CLTS Handbook, published by Plan International and the Institute of Development Studies, both in the UK, is a comprehensive resource for sanitation practitioners, non-governmental organisations and donors. It guides them through the different stages, activities and tools of a CLTS process and provides advice on follow up and going to scale. It is illustrated and supported by case studies and anecdotes from different countries.

CLTS focuses on the behaviour change needed for real and sustainable improvements to sanitation. It therefore invests in community mobilisation instead of hardware. The focus shifts from toilet construction for individual households to the creation of ‘open defecation free’ (ODF) villages.

CLTS facilitates communities’ own appraisal and analysis. They become aware that, even if just a minority continues to defecate in the open, they run the risk of ingesting each others’ faeces, contaminating food and water and spreading disease. CLTS triggers the community’s desire for change and provokes them into action to end open defecation. Instead of external hardware subsidies and prescribed latrine designs, CLTS encourages innovation, mutual support and locally appropriate, affordable and sustainable solutions.

The CLTS methodology uses the crudest local word for “shit” and includes people mapping and visiting open defecation areas, calculating the amount of “shit” they and the community produce and identifying the means by which faeces can contaminate food and water. CLTS seeks to shock, shame and encourage action to create a clean and hygienic environment. The disgust and desire for self-respect that arise during the “triggering” process can induce communities to take immediate action by building latrines and stopping open defecation without waiting for external support.

CLTS also encourages handwashing with soap or ash and other hygiene-related behaviours. Over time, ODF communities move up along the sanitation ladder, improving the structure and design of their toilets.

Case studies from different countries show:

The CLTS facilitator is crucial: a combination of boldness, empathy, humour, local knowledge and fun works best.
Children can play key roles, observing problems, composing songs, poems and drama about open defecation and what to do about it.
CLTS can be an entry point for other livelihoods activities, by building on collective action to address wider environmental, health and food security issues.
Natural leaders can become community consultants, facilitating change in other villages.

It is essential that:

Donors, governments and NGOs realise subsidies to rural households for sanitation hardware are counterproductive and inhibit collective local action
donors provide funds to train, support and retain dedicated CLTS facilitators: there is a risk that rapid scaling up will lead to deterioration of training quality
communities build their own latrines to their own designs and do not have models forced on them
triggering should never be a one-off event but the start of a continuous process of encouragement and support, leading to communities becoming sustainably free from open defecation, and empowered and inspired to go further.

Source(s):
“Handbook on Community-Led Total Sanitation”, Institute of Development Studies and Plan UK, by Kamal Kar with Robert Chambers, March 2008 (PDF) Full document.

Funded by: UK Department for International Development (DFID)

id21 Research Highlight: 13 November 2008

Further Information:
Petra Bongartz
Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex
Brighton, BN1 9RE, UK.

Tel: +44 1273 606261
Fax: +44 1273 621202/691647
Contact the contributor: p.bongartz@ids.ac.uk

Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

Plan UK
5-6 Underhill Street
London NW1 7HS, UK

Tel: +44 20 7482 9777
Fax: +44 20 7482 9778
Contact the contributor: mail@plan-international.org

PlanUK, London, UK

Livelihoods Connect

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