Ghana, Accra: Owning Latrines “Makes us Fat” – Local Community

Generally, the main perceived advantages of latrine ownership are proximity/easy access and privacy. For the people of Gozakope in the Dangme West District of the Greater Accra Region however, ownership of household latrines means all of these plus massive improvements in their health status.

Raymond Kotoka Lusu, Chairman, Water and sanitation (WATSAN) Committee of Gozakope, has said the introduction of the Community Led Total sanitation (CLTS) approach, which has led to the construction of latrines in various households in the small settlement, has improved health tremendously.

“We used to have diarrhea and stomach problems but now we are growing fat,” Lusu told members of the Ghana WATSAN Journalists Network (GWJN) who took a field trip to the area recently to know at first hand the state of water sanitation and hygiene issues (WASH), as well as, the state of interventions by the Professional Network Association (ProNet) Accra, a partner of WaterAid Ghana.

About a year ago, ProNet Accra introduced CLTS to the Gozakope community located in the Asutwuare Sub-district of the Dangme West District. Hitherto, the community engaged in “free range” defecation. Men, women and children alike defecated in the bush.

A defecation map showed that sometimes the indigenes “did their own thing” close to water bodies and on hills where it was very easy for water to run off into water bodies. Also, they had satellite refuse dumps scattered all around. Though, they experienced health hazards and its attendant problems, they appeared oblivious to the need for alternatives.

Derick Abandoh, ProNet Accra Officer in charge of Hygiene, said the organisation introduced the CLTS approach to the community because it saw evidence of open defecation. Besides, its research proved that there had not been any previous funding of any projects relating to WASH in the community.

Upon entry, ProNet officials took the community through pre-triggering (getting to know the community), triggering (mapping defecation routes), post triggering and the walk of shame (leading the community members to the defecation site and holding discussions at the scene). All of these were supposed to alert the community about the unpleasant outcome of defecating in the open.

The construction of the latrines was undertaken by the community members themselves, using locally available material and local labour. Some of them have estimated the construction cost to be between GH¢70 and GH¢100 [US$ 49-70].

According to the people, the latrines are helping to keep flies away, leading to fewer disease germs being spread from place to place and there is less fecal seepage into water bodies. The result has been that there have been fewer diseases – less diarrhea, less worms, less cholera, and less typhoid fever.

Lamisi J. Dabire, Communication and Campaigns Officer of WaterAid, Ghana, said “All these monies came from their own pockets; it shows their commitment.” She added, “We want to bring the self-help spirit in the community up.”

ProNet has also been working to improve water supply situation in the area [by] putting iron removal plants in some boreholes to make the water safe for use.

Source: Public Agenda / Peace FM Online, 23 Oct 2009

Pakistan: moving beyond open defecation free sanitation

CLTS Picture book. Plan International Pakistan

Pakistan has taken an important step towards improved sanitation through a major sector assessment and setting up of a core group that seeks to move communities beyond open defecation free (ODF) status. The Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach has already enabled more than 1,500 villages in Pakistan to achieve ODF status and is expected to reach 15,000 villages by June 2011. This will mean that a third of the rural population of Pakistan would be covered.

 

To consolidate this progress and scale up learning, a Core Group was formed in August 2008 to advise the government in policy refinement and implementation of its nation-wide sanitation policy. The Core Group includes senior officials from the key national ministries of Environment and Health, as well as Provincial Planning and Development Departments and international agencies, including WSP.

The group commissioned an assessment of CLTS pilots in nine villages in the country. The evidence gathered revealed that CLTS had the potential to motivate communities to achieve ODF status. However, it did not create demand for “improved sanitation,” which, according to the Joint Monitoring Program, implies use of sanitation facilities “that ensure hygienic separation of human excreta from human contact.

The surveyed communities were found using unimproved and unhygienic latrines without taking any substantial effort to upgrade or replace damaged latrines due to limited knowledge of different latrine options available at the household level.

A countrywide CLTS implementation strategy will be developed based on the recommendations of the review, and is likely to benefit all communities living in rural areas by 2015.

Source: WSP Access, Oct 2009

Reacting to this WSP news item, Prof. Duncan Mara noted in his blog:

‘So now we know what many of us had long suspected: the whole CLTS ‘process’ needs to be upgraded so as to ensure people get at least ‘improved’ sanitation. Actually what people need is ‘good’ sanitation and ‘improved’ does not necessarily mean ‘good’ (after all, ‘improved’ sanitation includes a “pit latrine with slab” − see here − and we’ve all seen hundreds of these that are far from satisfactory).’

The Story of Younus – sanitation promotion animation from Pakistan

This animated short film [5 min, 22 sec] details the travails of a barefoot consultant who promotes sanitation in villages in Pakistan. The barefoot consultant prospers in his work and develops a working sanitation market, he achieves such success that he is soon asked to travel to other villages to help them become Open Defecation Free.

The film was directed by Numair Abbas of Gogimation, a division of Gogi Studios in Islamadad, Pakistan. It was produced for the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) and posted on WSP’s YouTube Channel.

Sierra Leone – A UNICEF CORD Community led Total Sanitation project

A UNICEF/ CORD Sierra Leone Community Led Total Sanitation Project (CLTS) have conducted three sets of experience sharing training workshops for 98 Natural Leaders in Niawa, Lower Bambara, Small Bo and Nongowa Chiefdoms in the Kenema District.

The programme was officially opened in the Chiefdom headquarter town of Panguma in the Lower Bambara by Chief Patrick Komeh one of the section Chiefs of Lower Bambara Chiefdom and was graced by various chiefdom stakeholders from the four selected chiefdoms in the Kenema District.

Chief Komeh in his opening remarks praised the effort of UNICEF/ CORD Sierra Leone for their timely intervention in training their people for action toward sanitation which he said is a very big move in promoting health not only in the chiefdoms but the entire district.

Chief Komeh promised on behalf of the Paramount Chief of Lower Bambara Chiefdom PC Almamy Farma who was absent and other chiefs of Lower Bambara Chiefdom to give their fullest support in seeing that the project succeeds.

The CLTS Manager Vandi Dauda who organized the workshop for the selected chiefdoms commended the chiefs for attending the workshop. He formally handed over the project to the chiefs and urged them to play leading roles in seeing that it succeeds.

A section chief Nalo Samuka of Komende Station, Amadu Sama of Jumu Kafabu, Lahai Keifala of Kagbado Jaygbla who attended the workshop on behalf of other chiefs in the Nongowa chiefdom commended UNICEF/CORD Sierra Leone, CLTS project, saying that the project came for alleviating the plight of their people by challenging them to build toilets for themselves and inducing them to provide basic sanitation requirements in their communities.

The town chief Moray Turay complained about the features of all their communities where the project is being implemented and appealed to the entire town chief and the towns concern to take the work seriously saying that health is wealth.

In his statement the CLTS Health District Supervisor for CORD Sierra Leone Moses Fatorma explained how the communities were selected and challenged all participants to work hard and see that their communities are open defecation free. He referred to the Natural Leaders as activist and enthusiast who should contribute positively and save their led CLTS project in their chiefdoms.

Source – Awoko

id21 highlights special issue on sanitation

The December 2008 special issue of “id21 highlights” on sanitation was produced by in collaboration with the IDS research and action learning programme, ‘Going to Scale? The Potential of Community-Led Total Sanitation’.

The 4-page issue includes the following items:

• Zambian villagers meet sanitation goals
• Useful resources
• Ending open defecation in Nigeria
• Scaling up CLTS
• Community selfmobilisation

Read the full issue here

Visit the project web site here

Bangladesh: Community-Led Total Sanitation – breaking a dirty old habit in Bangladesh

Dinajpur district residents have stopped defecating in the open because of the children’s total sanitation campaign that follows a radical community-led approach.

A procession of children march through a village in Dinajpur demanding an end to open defecation. Photo: Pal Bangladesh

Whistle blowing is a favorite pastime among children in the villages of Dinajpur district in northern Bangladesh. They would blow their whistles when they spot fellow villagers, often adults, defecating in the open, chasing the surprised offenders who would then pull their pants up and attempt to escape the noise and humiliation. [...] Within 6 months, they shamed some 250 people from different villages. Besides the whistling and flag-marking, the children also march around villages, chanting slogans against open defecation (OD), sending a direct message to all villagers about the dirty old habit.

The children’s involvement in this direct action against OD is part of the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), “an integrated approach to achieving and sustaining open defecation free status.” The children know that their efforts help protect their own and their communities’ health, and adults include them in community decision-making.

[...] Designed by social development specialist Dr. Kamal Kar, CLTS was introduced by Plan, an international development agency, to some 200 villages in Dinajpur in 2004.

[...] In CLTS, hands-off facilitation is important. The rule of thumb for social development facilitators is to trigger self-realization, and not to lecture. Instant provision of hardware-latrines or toilets-are also discouraged. Villagers have to realize first that the problem is staring at them right in the face. The CLTS approach helps communities recognize that they need such sanitation facilities, that they should mobilize themselves to build their own toilets, and that everyone in the village should contribute to achieve “total sanitation.”

[...] Today, most Dinajpur villages have achieved “open defecation free” (ODF) status and, thanks to Plan’s efforts, a number of villages in several districts have also adopted the CLTS approach.

The children’s campaign is the just the beginning. CLTS allows villagers to generate their own ideas for improvement, take control of development processes and decision-making, and manage and sustain the activities. Often, CLTS has led to improving latrine designs, adopting hygienic practices, managing solid waste and wastewater, protecting drinking water sources, and other environmental activities.

Some villagers, however, can prove to be more difficult than others. Ferdousi said, “Two years to convert everyone is not enough, but we will keep on raising awareness.”

Plan now promotes CLTS in other countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. A CLTS Handbook, published in 2008, is also available for social development facilitators.

Related web site: Community-led Total Sanitation – Bangladesh

See also: Whistle blowers put a stop to open defecation, Plan Bangladesh, 28 Mar 2008

Source: Cezar Tigno, ADB, Jan 2009

Sierra Leone: Communities take charge, one latrine at a time

Kadiatou Samura proudly showed her pristine new toilet to her Member of Parliament, the leader of her chiefdom and the head of the UN Children’s Fund’s [UNICEF] district office as they toured her village, Kamayintin, in Sierra Leone’s Bombali district. The village was celebrating its status as the chiefdom’s fifth to be declared “free of open defecation”.

The toilet was elegant and simple: an earth floor, walls built from local wood, topped by a conical straw roof. Samura built it herself with the help of 12 other families in the village, who together built 17 toilets in a month. “This toilet has saved us from sickness. Fewer of our children are falling ill from diarrhoea now,” Samura told IRIN.

[...] Just a third of rural Sierra Leoneans have access to clean water and to sanitation facilities, according to UNICEF’s Victor Kinyanjui, water, sanitation, hygiene manager. Diarrhoea is the third leading cause of death in children under five in Sierra Leone.

[...] Reversing old aid models whereby outsiders pay for and construct expensive latrines that villagers cannot afford to maintain, in this approach villagers choose their own latrine models, find the materials locally, raise money if necessary and then build them, said Kinyanjui. Sanitation experts guide villagers on the types of toilet to suit their topography and budget. Samura’s latrine – assuming the free labour of her fellow villagers – cost her nothing, whereas a standard modern latrine can cost up to US$100, according to Kinyanjui – equivalent to a third of annual earnings for most Sierra Leoneans.

[...] UNICEF’s aims to roll it out across 10 districts of the country by 2010, with ActionAid, Plan International, Oxfam, and GOAL, implementing the project.

[...] Mohamed Sankoh, programme manager for ActionAid in Bombali district, told IRIN: “Before, communities realised they were – excuse my language – eating each other’s [faeces] and it made them feel ashamed. Now we have seen a great change in people here, in the way they think”

Not all are convinced by the new approach. District councillor Eric Ceesay prefers the “safe, clean, concrete toilets” that international agencies – including UNICEF – used to build. Some 560 of these have been built over the years, and the district needs a further 1,500, Ceesay said. The community-led facilities are “inconveniently located, they have poor ventilation, and…they attract snakes.”

[...] To reinforce [sustainability of safe hygiene practices], local chiefs should resurrect now moribund local by-laws giving health inspectors the right to assess households’ hygiene levels and to exact fines of up to 16 US cents when they are sub-standard, Serra Limba Chief Kandeh Luseine said.

See also:  CLTS – Sierra Leone

Source: IRIN, 24 Feb 2009

Community-Led Total Sanitation website

This site replaces the Livelihoods Connect hot topic on CLTS. It is currently still under construction.

The CLTS website forms a part of the project: Going to Scale? The Potential of Community-Led Total Sanitation. This research project is managed by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

The CLTS website aims to be the global hub for CLTS, connecting the network of practitioners, communities, NGOs, agencies, researchers, governments, donors and others involved or interested in CLTS. The site contains practical information about the approach, information on CLTS in different countries, research papers, relevant news and events and other materials.

IDS Conference discusses scaling up Community Led Total Sanitation

A conference at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), Brighton, UK, from 16-18 December [2008] brought together professionals from around the world to share research and insights on Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS).

The conference was the culmination of an IDS-led research project [Going to Scale? The Potential of Community-Led Total Sanitation], funded by DFID.

CLTS is an innovative approach in which communities mobilise themselves to take their own action to end open defecation.

Read Julia Day’s blog and see images from the conference at The Crossing, the blog for the STEPS Centre.

[...] The conference learnt of remarkable progress towards communities becoming open defecation free (ODF) in [...] Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, and Zambia.

[Several problems were identified including]: how to support and verify the inclusion of the poorest and most marginalised; social, physical and ecological sustainability; the safe confinement of children’s faeces; financing, rewards and incentives; and quality and style of training. How to go to scale with quality was an overarching and recurrent theme throughout the conference.

Almost every panellist highlighted that communities are not homogeneous, and that race, gender, ethnicity and class can be significant axes of difference. Achieving ODF conditions requires acceptance and participation by everyone in a community. Care is needed to ensure that CLTS reaches those who are poorest and most marginalised and that these groups don’t become more stigmatised in the process.

[...] Key areas for innovation and learning were identified, among them: how to sustain ODF conditions once they have been achieved; the role of children and schools; integration and collaboration with other approaches to sanitation and hygiene; and policy advocacy in working with donors and governments. Learning alliances of organisations and individuals were agreed to be a promising way forward.

[...] IDS will continue to work on CLTS. Findings from the current research project will be widely disseminated early in 2009. Under a new Irish Aid-funded project, IDS researchers Robert Chambers and Petra Bongartz will work together with Kamal Kar on action learning and networking and Lyla Mehta will explore opportunities for future research. This new project will include continuing to build a global network for sharing and learning to improve practice and policy around CLTS.

For more info on CLTS see the new (under development) and old project web site.

Source : Robert Chambers and Petra Bongartz, IDS, 23 Dec 2008

Pakistan: stopping open defecation through behavioural change

“I remember the time when I’d get up to the chirping of the birds, walk across to a nearby field, relieve myself in the fresh, open air -undisturbed – go to the nearby canal, take a bath and then come home to a hearty breakfast… before going off to work in the fields,” said an old farmer.

“This is the mind-set against which we are working,” said Wasim Aslam, an activist striving to make 564 villages in Pakistan open defecation free (ODF).

Aslam is from Lodhran, one of the implementers of the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) campaign initiated by the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP), and one 1,500 activists who have been trained to get the CLTS movement off the ground.

[...] The 1,500 trained activists are mostly men, but their success is in large measure due to the women behind them. Irfanullah, a local counsellor in Peshawar, said that had it not been for his wife, he would not have made any headway.

[...] “We want people to need a toilet. We don’t just give it to them as they may not necessarily use it. We work on their psychology,” said Aslam, adding that CLTS was first introduced in Pakistan in 2004.

[...] According to Javed Ali Khan, director-general of the Ministry of Environment, ODF initiatives have benefited about 1.12 million people. The practice of open defecation in rural areas came down from about 74 percent of the rural population in 1990, to 45 percent by 2006.

According to the Ministry of Environment, 73 percent of the population now has access to a latrine – 96 percent in urban areas, and 62 percent in rural areas.

CLTS is now included in the national sanitation policy, said [World Bank sanitation specialist] Alrai.

Source: IRIN, 12 Dec 2008