Community-led total sanitation
Encyclopedia
Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is an innovative methodology for mobilising communities to completely eliminate open defecation
(OD). Communities are facilitated to conduct their own appraisal and analysis of open defecation (OD) and take their own action to become ODF (open defecation free).
At the heart of CLTS lies the recognition that merely providing toilet
s does not guarantee their use, nor result in improved sanitation
and hygiene
. Earlier approaches to sanitation prescribed high initial standards and offered subsidies as an incentive. But this often led to uneven adoption, problems with long-term sustainability and only partial use. It also created a culture of dependence on subsidies. Open defecation and the cycle of fecal–oral contamination continued to spread disease.
In contrast, CLTS focuses on the behavioural change needed to ensure real and sustainable improvements – investing in community mobilisation instead of hardware, and shifting the focus from toilet construction for individual households to the creation of “open defecation-free” village
s. By raising awareness that as long as even a minority continues to defecate in the open everyone is at risk of disease, CLTS triggers the community’s desire for change, propels them into action and encourages innovation, mutual support and appropriate local solutions, thus leading to greater ownership and sustainability
.
CLTS was pioneered by Kamal Kar (a development consultant from India) together with VERC (Village Education Resource Centre), a partner of WaterAid
Bangladesh, in 2000 in Mosmoil, a village in the Rajshahi district of Bangladesh, whilst evaluating a traditionally subsidised sanitation programme. Kar, who had years of experience in participatory approaches in a range of development projects, succeeded in persuading the local non-governmental organization
(NGO) to stop top-down toilet construction through subsidy. He advocated change in institutional attitude and the need to draw on intense local mobilisation and facilitation to enable villagers to analyse their sanitation and waste
situation and bring about collective decision-making to stop open defecation.
CLTS spread fast within Bangladesh
where informal institutions and NGOs are key. Both Bangladeshi and international NGOs adopted the approach. The Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) of the World Bank
played an important role in enabling spread to neighbouring India
and then subsequently to Indonesia
and parts of Africa
. Plan International, WaterAid
and UNICEF have become important disseminators and champions of CLTS. Today CLTS is in more than 40 countries in Asia
, Africa, Latin America
and the Middle East
.
CLTS has a great potential for contributing towards meeting the United Nations Development Programme
goals, both directly on water and sanitation (goal 7) and indirectly through the knock-on impacts of improved sanitation on combating major diseases, particularly diarrhoea (goal 6), improving maternal health (goal 5) and reducing child mortality (goal 4).
In addition to creating a culture of good sanitation, CLTS can also be an effective point for other livelihoods activities. It mobilises community members towards collective action and empowers them to take further action in the future. CLTS outcomes illustrate what communities can achieve by undertaking further initiatives for their own development.
More recently, it has also been adapted to the urban
context. At the moment, the most exciting developments are taking place in Mathare 10, Nairobi where Plan together with CCS are doing an Urban Community-led Total Sanitation pilot. You can read the latest news about this pilot in a blog on the CLTS website
Increasingly, there is also discussion about how CLTS could be adapted to post-emergency settings and there has been some experience with this in Haiti
, Afghanistan
and Indonesia.
Defecation
Defecation is the final act of digestion by which organisms eliminate solid, semisolid or liquid waste material from the digestive tract via the anus. Waves of muscular contraction known as peristalsis in the walls of the colon move fecal matter through the digestive tract towards the rectum...
(OD). Communities are facilitated to conduct their own appraisal and analysis of open defecation (OD) and take their own action to become ODF (open defecation free).
At the heart of CLTS lies the recognition that merely providing toilet
Toilet
A toilet is a sanitation fixture used primarily for the disposal of human excrement, often found in a small room referred to as a toilet/bathroom/lavatory...
s does not guarantee their use, nor result in improved sanitation
Sanitation
Sanitation is the hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes. Hazards can be either physical, microbiological, biological or chemical agents of disease. Wastes that can cause health problems are human and animal feces, solid wastes, domestic...
and hygiene
Hygiene
Hygiene refers to the set of practices perceived by a community to be associated with the preservation of health and healthy living. While in modern medical sciences there is a set of standards of hygiene recommended for different situations, what is considered hygienic or not can vary between...
. Earlier approaches to sanitation prescribed high initial standards and offered subsidies as an incentive. But this often led to uneven adoption, problems with long-term sustainability and only partial use. It also created a culture of dependence on subsidies. Open defecation and the cycle of fecal–oral contamination continued to spread disease.
In contrast, CLTS focuses on the behavioural change needed to ensure real and sustainable improvements – investing in community mobilisation instead of hardware, and shifting the focus from toilet construction for individual households to the creation of “open defecation-free” village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
s. By raising awareness that as long as even a minority continues to defecate in the open everyone is at risk of disease, CLTS triggers the community’s desire for change, propels them into action and encourages innovation, mutual support and appropriate local solutions, thus leading to greater ownership and sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
.
CLTS was pioneered by Kamal Kar (a development consultant from India) together with VERC (Village Education Resource Centre), a partner of WaterAid
WaterAid
WaterAid is an international non-profit organisation set up as a response to the UN International Drinking Water & Sanitation decade . WaterAid is dedicated to helping people escape the poverty and disease caused by living without safe water and sanitation. It is based in London, England and was...
Bangladesh, in 2000 in Mosmoil, a village in the Rajshahi district of Bangladesh, whilst evaluating a traditionally subsidised sanitation programme. Kar, who had years of experience in participatory approaches in a range of development projects, succeeded in persuading the local non-governmental organization
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...
(NGO) to stop top-down toilet construction through subsidy. He advocated change in institutional attitude and the need to draw on intense local mobilisation and facilitation to enable villagers to analyse their sanitation and waste
Waste
Waste is unwanted or useless materials. In biology, waste is any of the many unwanted substances or toxins that are expelled from living organisms, metabolic waste; such as urea, sweat or feces. Litter is waste which has been disposed of improperly...
situation and bring about collective decision-making to stop open defecation.
CLTS spread fast within Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
where informal institutions and NGOs are key. Both Bangladeshi and international NGOs adopted the approach. The Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) of the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
played an important role in enabling spread to neighbouring India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and then subsequently to Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
and parts of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. Plan International, WaterAid
WaterAid
WaterAid is an international non-profit organisation set up as a response to the UN International Drinking Water & Sanitation decade . WaterAid is dedicated to helping people escape the poverty and disease caused by living without safe water and sanitation. It is based in London, England and was...
and UNICEF have become important disseminators and champions of CLTS. Today CLTS is in more than 40 countries in Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, Africa, Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
and the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
.
CLTS has a great potential for contributing towards meeting the United Nations Development Programme
United Nations Development Programme
The United Nations Development Programme is the United Nations' global development network. It advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP operates in 177 countries, working with nations on their own solutions to...
goals, both directly on water and sanitation (goal 7) and indirectly through the knock-on impacts of improved sanitation on combating major diseases, particularly diarrhoea (goal 6), improving maternal health (goal 5) and reducing child mortality (goal 4).
In addition to creating a culture of good sanitation, CLTS can also be an effective point for other livelihoods activities. It mobilises community members towards collective action and empowers them to take further action in the future. CLTS outcomes illustrate what communities can achieve by undertaking further initiatives for their own development.
More recently, it has also been adapted to the urban
Urban
Urban means "related to cities." It may refer to:*Urban, California, former town in El Dorado County*Urban area, geographical area distinct from rural areas*Urban , given name and surname*Urban , Danish free daily newspaper...
context. At the moment, the most exciting developments are taking place in Mathare 10, Nairobi where Plan together with CCS are doing an Urban Community-led Total Sanitation pilot. You can read the latest news about this pilot in a blog on the CLTS website
Increasingly, there is also discussion about how CLTS could be adapted to post-emergency settings and there has been some experience with this in Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
, Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
and Indonesia.
See also
- Farmer Field SchoolFarmer Field SchoolThe Farmer Field School is a group-based learning process that has been used by a number of governments, NGOs and international agencies to promote Integrated Pest Management...
- Orangi Pilot ProjectOrangi Pilot ProjectThe Orangi Pilot Project refers to a socially innovative project carried out in 1980s in the squatter areas of Orangi Town, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. It was initiated by Akhtar Hameed Khan, and involved the local residents solving their own sanitation problems...
- Water supply and sanitation in BangladeshWater supply and sanitation in BangladeshWater supply and sanitation in Bangladesh is characterized by a number of achievements and challenges. The share of the population with access to an improved water source was estimated at 98% in 2004, a very high level for a low-income country. This has been achieved to a large extent through the...
Further reading
Key Publications (all free to download from the CLTS website):- Kamal Kar with Robert Chambers (2008) Handbook on Community-led Total Sanitation. IDS and Plan International also available in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, Bengali, Khmer and Arabic
- Kamal Kar (2010) Facilitating “Hands-on” Training Workshops for CLTS: A Trainer's Training Guide
- Petra Bongartz and Robert Chambers (2009) Beyond Subsidies- Triggering a Revolution in Rural Sanitation (In Focus Policy Briefing)
- Robert Chambers (2009)Going to Scale with Community-led Total Sanitation: Reflections on Experience, Issues and Ways Forward
- Bongartz, Petra, Musyoki, Samuel Musembi, Milligan, Angela and Ashley, Holly (2010) Tales of Shit: Community-Led Total Sanitation in Africa, Participatory Learning and Action 61, London: International Institute for Environment and Development
- Kamal Kar and Petra Bongartz (2006) Latest Update to Subsidy or Self Respect. Update to IDS Working Paper 257
- Kamal Kar and Katherine Pasteur(2005) Subsidy or Self-Respect? Community Led Total Sanitation. An Update on Recent Developments . IDS Working Paper 257
- Kamal Kar (2005) Practical Guide to Triggering Community-Led Total Sanitation. IDS. Also available in Chinese , Arabic, Spanish, French and Lao
- Kamal Kar (2003) Subsidy or Self-Respect? Participatory Total Community Sanitation in Bangladesh . IDS Working Paper 184
- Videos on CLTS
- CLTS photo gallery
- International Glossary of Shit
- Community-led total sanitation at Appropedia.org - includes a summary of Kar & Pasteur's writing.
- Video of Kamal Kar talking about community-led total sanitation in the Water Cube at the 2010 Stockholm Water Week
External links
- Communityledtotalsanitation.org has information about the approach, its application and experiences in different countries, photos, videos and more.