Has the advent of community-led total sanitation (CLTS) brought any meaningful change in our communities' attitude towards open defecation?

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Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is a sanitation approach/strategy invented by Kamal Kar aimed at stopping open defecation in our communities. This strategy has been around for a couple of years now and I believe is high time we evaluate its perceived impact. 

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  2. CLTS is appropriate in some contexts but not all. We need to understand the context and be prepared NOT to use CLTS if it is deemed unsuitable, e.g. if the community has already been badly triggered by a previous CLTS campaign. We should also plan to include a wider Behaviour Change Communication campaign and forms of sanitation marketing where necessary to support our sanitation and hygiene awareness raising. Sustainable behaviour change is difficult to achieve and we need to learn from modern marketing techniques in order to have success. We are unlikely to have sustainable success in a very short period of time, such as 2 to 3 months.

  3. CLT campaigns have more to do with behavior change in our community people. If people fully understand the benefits of having proper sanitation and the dangers of open defecation, and thus act on the basis that they are not coerced but fully understand and realize that they need this sanitation, then i would say that the change is meaningful. It is very true that involving communities in project implementation encourages community ownership, better still involving these communities in the entire project cycle yields more desired results. I visited a place where i found every household had a VIP toilet built and I was very impressed but something caught my attention and made me wonder, some people where not using them as toilets, rather they where storing harvested maize in them and continued using the nearby bush as toilets....Where time has been invested in educating people, CLTs are leading to true behavior change. Let us not tire in educating our communities on health and hygiene issues...I think puting a time frame to behavior change compaigns will just frustrate project implementors if change is not seen in that set period. I want to leave this question, is using traditional leaders to speak to their subjects or rather tell their subjects (as has been the case in most communities) that they need to act or they face a charge for not having a toilet pit at their home OK?

  4. Does anyone know whether there have been studies investigating the psychological effects of CLTS? My colleagues and I are concerned that the utilitarian aspects of increasing WASH access may be overshadowing issues associated with lowering self esteem, etc, by triggering feelings of disgust and shame, and the potential for poorer households to be ostracised by communities for failing to act.

  6. In rural India it failed

    The Total Sanitation Campaign  was a community-led, people-centred, demand-driven and incentive-based programme ideal to address India's rural sanitation crisis, or so it seemed. But policy failed to translate into practice and outcomes were remarkably poor.

  7. CLTS is a good approach in community development in areas of public health however the community people are supposed to understand some technical issues around the approach. Some of technical issues are described by technical people only not to the local. There is need to translate all technical approaches to a local languages so that community people would appreciate and easily adopted.

  8. CLTS does bring meaningful change and support in most communities, if explained correctly

    In most cases the main two or thee problems are generated by turbidity, "red" water, and, taste and odors, for complaint problems in general community complaints. Although, with tours and mailing brochures, and actually seeing, and understanding, the disinfection processes in action, they feel safer about the water being produced. Whereby, CLTS does bring meaningful change and support in most communities, if explained correctly, and a trust is established with the utilities that the drinking water is pathogen free. Polishing processes can help though filtering that is laid in series pattern, can really help with communities complaints. In our processes, we use no disinfection chemicals open or closed systems. Chlorine residual is the least expensive disinfection in a closed system. In an open system, most communities fear bad odor problems will exist in an open system. This is solved by plastic covers being installed! Then, CLTS involvement will have a fair chance to be accepted...

  10. According to my experience not yet. This is the challenge a development worker has to take as the poor has other priorities to the sanitation like food and water.

  11. While an evaluation is always welcomed , cause one jacket does not fit all. I do not have any doubts that CLTS have changed to mindset and have made impact. Pl see this story of one such village .. thousand exists and have sustained as well. Some have gone back due to multiple reasons. http://www.power-publishers.com/buy-books/non-fiction/change-to-change-detail Change to Change’ is an exhortation to change oneself in order to bring about change in life. This book narrates the journey which the people of Mahalunge undertook to transform their backward, unhygienic and poor village into a hygienic, modern & progressive one. It’s a live example of how a government scheme when lapped up by the right people in the right spirit achieves exactly what it is designed for. A true account of how they did things differently and successfully. Exactly what India needs to replicate in every corner to become a developed country! It is a tribute to all such community efforts being made across the State of Maharashtra, to share their experiences, a documentation of the practices adopted by its people towards its own betterment. It serves as an example where all modern management techniques like initiative, leadership, teamwork, profit sharing, SWOT analysis, resource deployment, benchmarking, knowledge sharing etc were put into practice by barely literate villagers who were driven by only one agenda `sustainable development.’ More importantly, the villagers didn’t stop after realizing their dream, but they kept on improving their own performance. The book aims to give an insight to the policy makers, implementation agencies and other stakeholders involved in the process of community development through community participation. It hopes to bring about the required change in the approach and mindset of people in order to change the present.

  12. This approach leaves a lot to ponder about on the minds of professionals who really want the best for communities they are working in. It is a common knowledge that organisations like DFID will fund WASH projects and all they are concerned about is the number of ODF communities within a specified period of time. My thinking is that CLTS is about behavior change of which a definite time frame cannot be attached to, so it rather looks ridiculous the donor organisations are setting time within which those communities to which they are funding should become ODF instead of allowing time, a necessary ingredient for change to take its course and alter the lives of beneficiaries. Are we really doing the CLTS thing very well? Going by this, is there any evidence to show that communities intervened in this manner will sustain this new acquired habit of not defecating in the open to conform with the desired usage of latrines?

  13. Based on my experience of program management of community participation based rural development, I would say it has made a significant impact on the lives of the beneficiary communities. Their health and hygiene improves. They become more responsible because of the sense of ownership induced in them. Another great advantage of this strategy is that leadership and team playing traits are developed in the community members. I shall second Charles that impact assessment should be carried out, particularly on global level and the reports should be widely published and exchanged for the betterment of the communities not yet involved in such schemes.

  14. I am for an evaluation of CLTS as it is an approach that is implemented settings by different people under different project techniques. It is rather difficult to introduce behavioural change in a short time, especially in poor rural areas. Certainly, it will work in some places but not in others. The rate of success remains to be determined by an in depth evaluation globally meaning in different countries and settings.