Community-based approach to ending public defecation in Nigeria

In Nigerian villages people often defecate in surrounding grasslands. Faeces is stepped on by people, animals or flies and transported back into homes. It gets into food and is washed into water sources, spreading disease. Participatory processes can encourage local communities in Nigeria to improve sanitation and hygiene practices.

The Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach supports a participatory process of encouraging local communities to improve their sanitation situation. It was pioneered in Bangladesh and is being used in four states of Nigeria to shock communities into abandoning unhygienic practices.

A report from WaterAid, a British non-governmental organisation, assesses the second phase of a pilot CLTS programme in Nigeria, which started in 2006. WaterAid Nigeria realised that even when development organisations intervene to subsidise latrine building or provide hygiene education, when the money and support finish, people are usually unable or unmotivated to continue improvements and often return to open defecation. The primary strategy of CLTS is to inspire and empower local communities to stop open defecation through collective action, without providing a subsidy.

When WaterAid and its partners pilot CLTS in a community, they initiate frank discussions about ‘shit’ and toilets, working with villagers to quantify the extent of excrement scattered about. They aim to provoke a sense of disgust and resolve to end practices which, in effect, mean villagers are ingesting each others’ faeces.

Research on CLTS impact in 13 communities showed:

• a significant reduction in the extent of open defecation: some communities have formally declared ‘open defecation-free’ status
• a reduction in cases of skin infections, diarrhoea and vomiting, particularly amongst children
• a ten-fold increase in the number of latrines: using local materials, half the communities now have nearly universal access to safe toilets
• women’s dignity is protected and risks of assault and snakebites en route to and from the bush are reduced
• an increase in hand washing after defecation and before eating
• some previously thin villagers have gained weight.

Community members feel the programme is theirs, are committed to its sustainability and have developed methods to raise funds to ensure water points, latrines and washing facilities are maintained. Both domestic and public spaces are much cleaner. Those interviewed expressed pride in being able to bring about positive improvements in hygiene and sanitation and reported feeling empowered. CLTS approaches are now being replicated in neighbouring communities without the need for external support – although villagers do want outside support to construct water points.

Researchers noted that the effectiveness of CLTS varied, depending on conditions. These need to be taken into consideration when introducing the initiative elsewhere:

• CLTS is more effective in communities where it is the only approach to promoting hygiene and sanitation: it is harder to implement in places where latrine subsidies – or free latrine slabs – have been previously offered.
• It works best in smaller communities in which a village water and sanitation committee is established and a water point rehabilitated or established.
• It is less effective in more urbanised communities, which include tenant populations.
• CLTS facilitators have to be trained in and comfortable with a range of Participatory Rapid Appraisal tools, including transect walks, social mapping and faecal calculation.

Source(s):
‘An Evaluation of the WaterAid’s CLTS Programme in Nigeria’, WaterAid, by Salma Burton, August 2007 (PDF) Full document.

Funded by: UNICEF

id21 Research Highlight: 27 April 2008

Further Information:
Salma Burton

Tel: +234 7037766191 or +44 7855804830
Contact the contributor: burtons_959@hotmail.com

WaterAid
2nd floor
47-49 Durham Street
London, SE11 5JD
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 845 6000433
Fax: + 44 20 77934545
Contact the contributor: wateraid@wateraid.org

WaterAid, UK

Other related links:
'Time to get serious about sanitation and hygiene in Madagascar'

'As top-down toilets go wrong, can community-run loos bind neighbourhoods together?'

'Overcoming barriers to better sanitation in the Democratic Republic of Congo' >

'Challenges of sanitation and hygiene promotion in Burkina Faso'

'Better hygiene: washing hands with soap in Ghana'

'Linking sanitation, water and livelihoods in Nairobi slums'

'New management model for water and sanitation in Peru'