Understanding shit helps Zambian villagers meet sanitation goals

It is horrible to have shit around your home. If you do not wash you hands, you will eat your own and your neighbours' shit. By shocking local people with such direct language, a pilot project in Zambia creates a sense of disgust, which encourages people to improve sanitation and through this develop a strong sense of individual and community pride.

UNICEFand Choma District Council report on the success of apilot project in Zambia's Southern Province. It uses a community approach toimproving sanitation called Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS). In twomonths, the percentage of the local population using a toilet has risen from 23to 88 percent, without outside funding for building latrines.

Trainedgovernment facilitators take villagers through a process of 'guided discovery' thatmakes them feel uncomfortable about not using toilets. Group activities andhumour help them to understand that open defecation is unhygienic, unpleasantand unnecessary.

Activitiesinclude asking villagers when they last defecated in the open and calculatingthe total amount of shit created by the village every year. Villagers leadfacilitators on a walk through the community showing each other where theyshit. A piece of shit is brought back and put next to food to demonstrate howflies contaminate the latter with faecal matter. The economic advantages ofbuilding a toilet rather than incurring healthcare costs are also calculated.

Atthe end of this triggering process, villagers are encouraged to come up with anaction plan for tackling the problem of open defecation. This also includes themcoming up with their own innovative designs for latrines. Villagers form aSanitation Action Group which monitors households and ensures that the plansare put into action.

Despitethe programme taking place in the wet season, the huge increase in new latrinesbuilt suggests it has been a success:

• Theproject has been most successful in places where few toilets existed before.
• Indensely populated communities households may share toilets.
• Therole of traditional and civic leaders is crucial in implementing and sustainingthe project.
• Localpeople have developed great pride and a sense of ownership of their toilets andensuring their villages are clean.
• Existingsanitation projects that have had limited impact can adopt a CLTS approach toscale up access.
• Whilethe quality of constructed toilets is variable, most of them meet theGovernment’s definition of ‘adequate’ sanitation and many have beenincrementally improved over time.

Itremains to be seen whether the approach will be sustainable. However, localchiefs are keen to introduce it to all their communities and it has alreadybeen expanded to more than half of the villages in the entire district.Traditional leaders and district staff need to continue to monitor theprogramme to assess its long-term success:

• Chiefdomlevel verification committees must verify reports from community sanitationaction groups; district level certification committees should certify villagesas free from open defecation.
• Wardscould set up verification committees to create formal links with districtcouncils.
• Whena village is successful in preventing open defecation, they could erect asignboard that shows their success.
• Handwashing and hygiene promotion can be added to the CLTS approach to ensurepositive health outcomes.
• Technicaladvice to sanitation action groups, including on toilet buildings andsanitation platforms, pit lining and sites can help to improve the longevity ofsanitation infrastructure.
• ArtisanAssociations can market their latrine construction services and set updemonstration latrines to show different technologies.