CLTS Foundation Global recently held a capacity building workshop at the 40th WEDC International Conference, UK on the CLTS Rapid Appraisal Protocol (CRAP) – a tool developed jointly by CLTS Foundation Global and the UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office over the last two years.

As part of the team that developed the tool and administered the same in different countries to field test its applicability, I was delighted to lead this workshop with other colleagues at this conference. CRAP is a tool that can be effectively applied in country contexts to assess the overall status of CLTS programming in the respective country. The tool application involves stakeholder consultations at different administrative and governance levels – national, regional and local – as an essential step towards understanding if the national policy and programming aspects of CLTS implementation in a country are sufficiently aligned at the policy and programme intervention levels at regional and local levels to produce results on the ground. This also helps in identifying critical building blocks of the programme in terms of strengths and gaps which can be used to design a way forward to expand the coverage, scale and effectiveness of the programme.

The workshop witnessed participation from government officials, sanitation experts, M&E specialists, NGO practitioners, researchers and academics across policy and programmatic functions from different countries. An active discussion and rich sharing of global sanitation experiences during the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) period from countries such as Mozambique, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Kenya, Nepal and India among others highlighted the need for the development of a tool like CRAP. CLTS emerged as a radical new approach in the year 2000 shifting sanitation policy and programmatic focus from top down toilet construction approaches to community led solutions and local collective action that was successful in achieving sustainable results in sanitation. The ability of the approach to achieve clear sanitation and hygiene outcomes within a quick timeframe with limited resources contributed to its popularity and uptake by national governments and development agencies across more than 70 countries around the developing world during the MDG period.

While CLTS pilot projects demonstrated success in terms of achieving open defecation free (ODF) communities, there were several challenges in scaling up the approach and achieving success at a district, regional and national level. It was becoming increasingly clear that the achievement of ODF and post ODF solutions at a larger scale demanded the involvement of a diverse set of actors outside of the community such as government stakeholders and ministries, even those who did not have the primary mandate to implement sanitation; and non-government organisations such as development partners, private sector, civil society, academia and media. Achieving ODF districts, regions and nations required multi layered advocacy strategies and triggering of behaviour change across different levels of institutional actors. Moreover, it was observed that there was wide variation in the implementation of CLTS not just across countries but across partner programmes in the same country and even among different country programmes of the same organisation. The development of the CRAP tool was necessitated in this context in order to set a basic minimum standard for CLTS programme implementation and ensure that critical elements are in place to scale up the programme.

The participants were involved in a simulation exercise to orient them on the steps involved in the CRAP application. The group was given a case study of a country sanitation context and each participant was given the role of a stakeholder covering both government and non-government sectors. The participants actively participated in a consultation exercise, which provided them an overall understanding of the tool application process, while giving them a hands-on experience on how to facilitate some of the tools.

Using participatory tools, the participants explored key areas of enquiry under the six key pillars which encompass the critical building blocks essential for scaling up any CLTS programme. During the consultation exercise, the first pillar – Policy, Roadmap and Directives- highlighted if there was an enabling environment and institutional support essential to implement CLTS and take it to scale in the country. Key questions were directed towards assessing if CLTS was part of national rural sanitation policy, if policy was translated into an operational roadmap and whether political buy in and leadership at all levels were in place to drive CLTS in the country at different levels of governance. The second pillar – Financial Planning and Budgeting – looked at the issue of adequate financial resources and planning processes that enable CLTS to translate from national strategies into operational plans at various levels. The pillar – CLTS Protocol or Guidelines – reviewed the quality of the national CLTS protocol in place and whether it was harmonized across partners and applied consistently across the country during triggering, verification and certification processes with due consideration for regional specificities. While the fourth pillar – Partnerships and Capacity – enquired if there were adequate number of actors in place with sufficient capacity and the convergence essential to achieve the national reach and quality needed for the CLTS program, the fifth pillar – Monitoring and Coordination – probed the existence of mechanisms to systematically capture process, outcome and impact data at various levels. It also looked at how data is coordinated and organized across various levels to provide feedback for CLTS programming and leadership. The last pillar – Post-ODF Sustainability – captured the extent of private sector involvement and sanitation marketing strategies to achieve sustainability in behaviour change and sanitation facilities.

As feedback of the tool, the participants shared that the effectiveness of the CRAP tool process lies in its potential to involve key sanitation actors as active analysts in the implementation of a country sanitation programme: to understand the health and status of CLTS, and identify key drivers to develop a roadmap for an ODF nation – this ensures that the key actors take ownership of the recommendations and action plan emerging from this exercise.

For more details on the CRAP tool, you can refer to the upcoming publication:
Kamal Kar, Sisir Pradhan, Preetha Prabhakaran, Ann Thomas, Peter Harvey (forthcoming): CLTS Rapid Appraisal Protocol (CRAP) – A tool for rapid assessment of the practice of CLTS at scale, UNICEF and CLTS Foundation Global, 2017

Acknowledgement:
The CRAP tool workshop was facilitated by Preetha Prabhakaran and Joydeep Dutta (CLTS Foundation Global) with support from Dr Andrew Cotton (WEDC University, Loughborough) and Dr Mansoor Ali ( UK WASH Network)

The post CLTS Foundation Global hosts CLTS Rapid Appraisal Protocol (CRAP) tool workshop at WEDC Conference 2017 appeared first on CLTS Foundation Global.

Group Photograph of CLTS Practitioners and Policy Makers in Thies, Senegal

It was a major advocacy and training workshop organised in Bamako in Mali later, in which leaders from 23 countries in the region participated, that provided the necessary impetus for mainstreaming CLTS in the region. Following this, CLTS pilot projects were introduced in most of the countries in the region and was subsequently adopted as the core strategy for enhancing sanitation progress during the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) period. This is the second follow up intervention of CLTS Foundation Global for this region after Bamako 2009 CLTS workshop. In between intensive efforts were given in many Francophone and Anglophone countries by Community Led Total Sanitation Foundation. A recent regional workshop organised in Dakar with participation from 18 countries can be seen as a similar milestone to boost sanitation efforts during the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) period.

Experience of CLTS in Western and Central Africa Region (WCAR):

Simulation exercise by Dr. Kamal Kar in progress at Thies, Senegal.

In the last decade, majority of countries in WCAR decided to adopt CLTS as the recommended methodology for rural sanitation programming. The early adopters of the approach were Sierra Leone, Mali, Ghana and Nigeria. Subsequently, other countries such as Benin, Cote d’ ivoire, Cameroon, Chad, Congo Brazzaville, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo followed suit. At the end of 2010, it was estimated that more than one million people were living in open defecation free environments as a result of the CLTS interventions. As the momentum to achieve results picked up towards the end of the MDG period, it is certain that the ODF achievement in these countries would have increased at the end of the year 2015.

However, huge challenges persist for the región during the SDGs. While individual countries might have made progress, the rate of open defecation (OD) has increased on the whole.  At the end of the MDG period, the rural OD rate in WCAR stands at 38%. Countries like Burkina Faso and Democratic Republic of Congo are yet to do away with a subsidy policy entirely and lag far behind its counterparts in the region. More than half of the population in Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Sao Tome and Principe and Togo defecate in the open. The rate of OD in Cote d’Ivoire, Mauritania and Nigeria is equally high between 25% and 50%. Nigeria is ranked 4th in the world for number of people practicing open defecation, which is as much as 45 million people.

While the rolling out of CLTS in the countries in the region produced impressive results during the last decade, scaling up of these interventions nation-wide has remained a challenge. This has been primarily due to the lack of an enabling environment and persistence of institutional bottlenecks that have prevented capacity building and change in mindsets at different levels, mobilisation of the necessary government and external funds, and mechanisms for actor coordination; all of which are critical in achieving CLTS outcomes. Going forward, what is required in the SDG period are context specific strategies to scale up CLTS in each of the target countries in the WCAR. While some countries require immediate capacity strengthening and process support at different levels, some others need advocacy support to influence their national policy to create an enabling environment for CLTS implementation and scale up. In most cases, for effective CLTS implementation, it is critical to establish functional linkages among key actors, develop an engagement strategy among different levels of government functioning and capture outcome and impact through locally evolved monitoring and verification mechanisms.

A community member presenting in the workshop

Towards achieving this objective, CLTS Foundation Global will support the Western and Central Africa Region to accelerate and improve sanitation and hygiene behaviour practice through elimination of open defecation, in partnership with UNICEF WCAR Office. Following the landmark regional workshop in Mali in the year 2007, this will the second stage of CLTS Foundation Global’s institutional support to the region, which will involve policy advocacy to build an enabling environment for CLTS, enhancing capacity to implement and scale up CLTS; assessing the status of CLTS programming in countries already implementing CLTS through an innovative methodology; and improve regional learning and exchange via capacity building, documentation and learning events.

Regional Workshop with CLTS Practitioners and Policy Makers in progress at Thies, Senegal

To kickstart this initiative, a regional workshop bringing together participants from 18 countries in the region, was organised recently in Dakar in Senegal. The objective of the workshop was to enhance capacities for scaling up through appropriate policy and coordination mechanisms that bring all formal and informal actors ( like Natural leaders and local actors) into the fold. As part of the regional planning to meet the sanitation milestones set out in the SDGs, the aim of the workshop was to establish a pool of trained individuals and organisations within WCAR who would not only contribute to capacity building nationally at various levels but would also support the organisation of trainings in other countries in the region.

This 7 days’ regional training workshop took place in Dakar and Thies in Senegal from August 22nd to 28th, 2016 and involved participants from the following countries: Senegal, Benin, Cameroun, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d’ivoire, Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Congo, Chad, Djibouti, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Madagascar, Ghana and Burundi.  The participants were directors and senior officers from different ministries (mainly Ministry of Health, Ministry of Water and Sanitation, Ministry of Environment), deputy heads of NGOs and UNICEF WASH teams from different countries in the region. The workshop included discussions and deliberations in Dakar on key topics related to CLTS scaling up, followed by a hands-on field training experience. Eight communities were triggered in the villages of Thies, as part of this workshop. The last two days of the workshop focused exclusively on essential elements of post triggering follow up and post ODF activities addressing the elements of sustainability, effective monitoring mechanisms and scaling up with quality to produce ODF districts/ regions etc. Each country team met in small groups to brainstorm on and develop action plans focusing on streamlining the national sanitation policy to ensure an enabling environment for CLTS, developing an appropriate scaling up strategy involving all conventional and non-conventional actors such as Natural leaders and Community Consultants, and building national capacity and mechanisms for sharing and disseminating experiences and best practices.

The post CLTS Foundation Global supports Western and Central Africa Region for fast tracking sanitation progress during the SDGs appeared first on CLTS Foundation Global.

During the inaugural session, the Minister of Hydraulique et de l’Assainissement (Water and Sanitation), Monsieur Barmou Salifou, reiterated his government’s resolve to institutionalise CLTS in its national policy as a means of achieving scale in sanitation coverage. “CLTS will help us achieve both our sanitation and health goals as both of these issues are closely linked.” said Monsieur Salifou. While articulating his confidence in the power of the community to find solutions to their sanitation problems, the Minister said that making progress required a fundamental shift in the mindsets of institutional actors at all levels. He expressed his vision “to make Niger the Bangladesh of Africa”, and said that this required all sanitation actors to act in a coordinated manner and follow a uniform protocol and guidelines.

During the workshop, the senior officials from the different ministries deliberated upon the key areas in which changes needed to take place in order for Niger to fast track its sanitation progress and achieve open defecation free (ODF) status. The officials brainstormed in small groups and came up with recommendations which will be taken up for further discussions and detailing at a national meeting later this month.

The institutional triggering workshop was followed by a 5-Day’s CLTS training of trainer’s workshop in Maradi region, from September 5^th to 9^th, 2016. Participants were drawn from all the 8 regions of the country and included senior officials from the Ministry of Water and Sanitation, Technical Services department of the region, UNICEF regional WASH teams and leading NGOs operating across the 8 regions of Niger. The key objective of the workshop was to strengthen human resource capacity to fast track CLTS across Niger and produce at least 1 or 2 ODF regions in the near future, in order to move the nation forward towards achieving access to sanitation. The importance of the workshop and the government’s commitment towards the cause of an ODF Niger was underlined by the participation of the Director of Cabinet, Government of Niger, Monsieur Abdou Maliki, and the Director-General of the Ministry of Water and Sanitation, Monsieur Ismaghil Bobaidji, throughout the 5 days’ training workshop.

During the training, 10 villages in Maradi region were triggered by the participants, resulting in more than 200 families digging pits within 48 hours of the triggering. At the end of the 2 day’s triggering on the field, approximately 737 families had made a pubic pledge to stop open defecation and make their villages ODF within 3 months. On the last day of the training workshop, members from the community presented their action plans to become ODF to the workshop participants. The community action plans were very impressive, including the use of local technology and the practice of hand washing to stop faecal-oral contamination. In one of the communities, the members had decided that they would not only become ODF, but would impose strict penalties on anyone who defecated outside in their village. Most of the communities invoked their religious beliefs as a motivation towards stopping open defecating, saying that it was against their religion Islam to be unclean when offering prayers, and open defecation thus came in the way of their religious practices. The Governor of Maradi, Monsieur Zakari Oumarou, in his speech during the closing of the workshop, shared the community’s enthusiasm and congratulated them on their resolve to stop open defecation. He stated his government’s commitment to put in all the necessary effort required to support every community in the region to make Maradi the first ODF region in the country.

The post CLTS Foundation Global leads policy advocacy and capacity building to eliminate open defecation in Niger appeared first on CLTS Foundation Global.

Lesotho is one of the smallest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with a population of a little over 2 million people, most of which are rural. The country is landlocked within South Africa, one of the most developed countries in the continent in terms of access to basic education, primary health care, access to water and sanitation, infrastructure, per capita income, livelihood opportunities and other basic indicators of development. In contrast, Lesotho’s access to most of these indicators is very dismal and skewed in comparison to even some of the other smaller countries in the region. Lesotho has fallen short of achieving most of its Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and ranks 161 out of 188 countries, in the Human Development Index (HDR 2014). According to the Lesotho Demographic Health Survey (LDHS) 2014, 38% of the rural population continue to practice open defecation (OD). The under-5 mortality rate is high with 85 deaths per 1000 live births and the infant mortality is equally alarming at 59 deaths per 1,000 live births. The maternal mortality ratio has been increasing steadily since 2001 and stood at 1,143 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2011 despite various initiatives. Additionally, the 2014 LDHS survey showed that 33% of children in Lesotho are stunted and 11% are severely stunted. An estimated 3% of children were found to be wasted during the survey while 10% was found to be underweight.

CLTS Foundation Global team (Dr. Kamal Kar and Preetha Prabhakaran) with Mr Tlali Hlasa, Director of DRWS, Ministry of Water (far right) and the World Vision team in Lesotho.

Lesotho’s sanitation story is particularly depressing. Not just because of its current sanitation coverage which stands at only 53% – there are other countries in sub-Saharan Africa that have recorded lower access rates than this. Having said this, the current coverage does not necessarily reflect the toilet usage; there is no official data currently available to know that all the people who have toilets are using them. A look at the above health statistics raises grave doubts in this regard, as the direct links between poor sanitation and low health outcomes are all too well known. Lesotho’s sanitation story is disheartening because, this current scenario when placed in the context of its sanitation history, reveals how an entire generation of people have been deprived of basic sanitation and hygiene, bringing with it the burden of diseases, ill health and under nutrition, most of it preventable, merely because of incorrect planning, management and coordination of resources, guided by ill-informed policies.

At a field mission in Lesotho.

Lesotho’s sanitation tragedy lies in the fact its story wasn’t meant to have unfolded this way. Lesotho started way ahead of its counterparts at the beginning of the MDG period, with 50% of the population already having achieved access to sanitation. It was identified as one of the countries that would steadily make progress and achieve universal access by the end of the MDG period. A sound national rural sanitation programme (NRSP), under the Ministry of Health, had been established way back in 1987 and was fully operational, with principles of community empowerment, collective action, entrepreneurship and self-reliance at the heart of its strategy. Lesotho’s home-grown sanitation model was exceptional and Lesotho was considered a trailblazer, with the potential to set a winning example for other countries in the region. It seemed only a matter of time before Lesotho would fast-track its efforts towards becoming one of the first open defecation free (ODF) nations in the region and inspire other countries in the region to do the same. However, almost a decade and half down the line, as Lesotho embraces the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it stands at the same point where it began in the early 2000s. How did this happen?

The decision to situate the NRSP when it evolved in 1987, in the Environmental Health Section of the Ministry of Health was a conscious step, keeping in view that health and hygiene should be seen as the main entry point as well as outcomes of sanitation and toilet usage. The government played largely an organisational and facilitative role, focusing on health and hygiene promotion to create user demand through campaigns and education. Communities constructed their own latrines by engaging private- sector latrine builders based in their or neighbouring communities. The entire costs for construction, including materials and builder’s wages were taken up by the households. People reduced their cost by collecting and using local materials for construction. The Ministry of Health invested in training rural community members on technical skills for construction and maintenance and many of these developed into small scale entrepreneurs, who had a direct economic incentive to promote improved sanitation and toilet usage in their communities. In this way, sustainability of the initiative was ensured.

Dr. Kamal Kar and Preetha Prabhakaran of CLTS Foundation Global with government officials from different ministries at Mokhotlong district, Lesotho.

As a result, rural sanitation coverage increased significantly in just over 20 years, from a mere 15 percent at the end of 1980s to over 50 percent by the beginning of the MDG period. Research in Lesotho also suggested a significant reduction in the incidence of sanitation related diseases in areas where water and sanitation projects had been implemented. For reasons unknown or undocumented, however, the whole approach changed track at the beginning of the millennium when the primary mandate for rural sanitation shifted from the Ministry of Health to the Ministry of Water, under the Department of Rural Water Supply (DRWS).

Under the DRWS, sanitation was perceived as an extension to provision of water supply facilities. It became a matter of infrastructure over everything else. External private contractors were brought in and the government took on the responsibility to construct toilets for the community with external support. The government thus moved from playing a facilitative and supportive role towards a direct implementation role. Other than building latrines the present approach of DRWS has no provision for initiating collective behaviour change focused towards ensuring usage of the facilities. External donor agencies support the government in providing hardware sanitation subsidy of varying amounts to rural households. This hardware subsidy comes with a universal toilet prescription design built with high external input dependent materials like cement, iron sheet, pans pipes etc. Most of these materials are not always available locally particularly in the remote rural areas and often it not easy to transport the materials to villages located in high mountains or in the valley with difficult access, thus increasing the cost considerably. At the end of it all, even official government data shows that this approach has not met with success in terms of outcomes.

At the end of the MDGs and the dawn of the SDG period, globally nations are consolidating their achievements and lessons of the past, to forge a new path towards success. Additionally, every country is under pressure to respond to regional and international commitments to meet the new global goals. These factors have collectively brought about a new awakening in the Lesotho government and administration for the need of a more sustainable approach to ensure universal sanitation coverage and move towards better sanitation and health outcomes.

The first steps towards initiating this change was notably taken by DRWS, and in November 2014, with the support of UNICEF, the government organized the first national CLTS workshop in Thaba-Tseka district. Among the 11 communities triggered during the training, one village Ha Khupiso has been certified as open defecation free (ODF) and 2 more villages have claimed ODF status. Other districts such as Mafeteng, Botha-Bothe, Quthing and Qacha’s Nek have started triggering their villages. The success of Ha-Khupiso has triggered across the nation a renewed hope of the past, of the community’s power to bring about sustainable change. Key sanitation actors and sector partners are realising that it is impossible to achieve universal coverage with sustained change in sanitation and hygiene behaviour practices unless the community sees sanitation as an internal need and leads its own process of change.

During the recent consultations led by CLTS Foundation Global at the district and national level, stakeholders voiced the need to put in place a national sanitation strategy with CLTS as its core principle, to set a national target date for achieving ODF along with a clear roadmap and milestones to fast track access to basic sanitation in the country. It was felt that being a country with a small population of just over 2 million, Lesotho has the potential to achieve ODF in a very short time. Additionally, this would make Lesotho one of the first ODF countries in the African continent, thus becoming a role model for other countries, especially the BNLS countries in the region. Looking back at the MDG era, while many countries did not achieve their MDG sanitation targets, a great number among them have put in place national policies and strategies focusing on community empowerment to fast track their country’s progress. These efforts need to be streamlined and accelerated to push ahead sanitation progress in the continent during the SDGs. For this, a few quick successes, in the form of ODF nations, is critical for the SDG target to become a reality. In the larger perspective, Lesotho could regain lost ground and play an instrumental role in leading change in the continent by becoming its first ODF nation.

The post How this African country is rewriting its sanitation story in the SDG era appeared first on CLTS Foundation Global.

Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) was piloted in Thaba Tseka district of Lesotho in November 2014 and 11 villages were triggered during the training process. Of these, Ha Khupiso is the first village to have attained ODF status within a short period of 6 months, making it the first and only ODF village in Lesotho at present.

During a recent visit to Lesotho, the CLTS Foundation Global team members met with four ‘Natural Leaders’ from Ha Khupiso who emerged from within the community during the CLTS triggering process. During the interaction, the champions highlighted some actions initiated by the community, leading to their village becoming ODF or in their own words, becoming “A Proud Village”. These are key elements that are generated as outcomes of any successful CLTS process and should be seen as useful lessons to be emulated in/by other villages across Lesotho.

Formation of “our own” committee:

Various committees had been formed by the health, water and other ministries as part of earlier initiatives. In these cases, the members were pre-selected by outside authorities and the committee was given specific duties to perform. Many of these committees remain inactive and dormant. However, it was for the first time, during the CLTS process, that the community took initiative to form their own committee and act collectively on actions initiated during the triggering process. This also brought new energy into the community and reunited old groups to act together. Community members exhibited more ownership and collective responsibility to set milestones and achieve results.

Community Solidarity:

As seen in many successful CLTS triggering examples, when community members understand that their health and those of their loved ones are at risk if even one household in the community defecates in the open, they all come together to help each other so that their entire village is free from open defecation. We were informed that in Ha Khupiso, out of a total of 44 households, there were 9 households with elderly people, 3 households with blind persons, 3 very poor households and 1 household with a mentally challenged person. These were households that found it challenging to build their own latrines.

This is when the traditional practice of “litzema’ or community solidarity came into play. The other households in the village helped these households by offering their labour in digging their pits, collecting materials from the fields, making toilet seats for them using stones, tins or wood etc. This helped in making the village completely free from open defecation in no time.

The Natural Leaders from Ha Khupiso : Motumi Ntlou, Mosiuoa Khasoane, Matseliso Mokabo and Mamasheane Khasoane with Ms Makhotso Mohoanyane from Department of Rural Water Supply, Ministry of Water ( 2^nd from right) and the CLTS Foundation Global team members at Thaba Tseka district in Lesotho

Influencing schools to build toilets:

The community members reported that once all the households had achieved ODF, every child in the community imbibed the practice of using the toilet. As a result, when they went to their school which did not have any toilets, they would hold back their urge to urinate or defecate until they were able to rush back to their homes and use their toilets either during break time or after school time. As a result, this triggered the schools to invest and build toilets for the children. Today, the schools in Ha Khupiso have toilets, as a result of the CLTS exercise.

Formulation of by-laws:

Everyone in the village is now bound by community by-laws that prohibit open defecation in the village. Even schools in the neighbourhood are expected to follow these by-laws which means that children coming to these schools from neighbouring villages cannot practice open defecation and have to use school toilets. Those breaking any of the by-laws are subject to penalisation by the village chief.

Use of Indigenous knowledge:

In order to get rid of the smell of shit, in addition to ash, the community members use a traditional shrub called “lengana” and aloe vera. The shrub is immersed in water and after the moisture is absorbed, the leaves are spread over the shit which has been reported to kill the smell.

The Natural Leaders are very proud of their achievement and also understand that the battle against open defecation will remain alive unless every village in Lesotho becomes ODF. They recognise that they are still not completely free from contamination unless their nearby villages also become ODF.

A national level stakeholder meeting underway in Lesotho.

When asked, they said that they were willing to help other villages in this process. In return, they asked for support to hire horses to travel to these villages on horseback, some triggering materials and some snacks and refreshments. They said they did not want any money! They also said that they were confident that it would not take more than 2 months each to make the other 7 villages in their electoral division ODF. Currently Ha Khupiso residents are the recipients of the trophy given by the Lesotho government for the first ODF village in their country. When asked which village would they hand this trophy to next, the Natural leaders said “We do not plan to give this trophy back. We will make our village the cleanest one in the country, more than any other village.”

The post Ha Khupiso: The first Open Defecation Free village in Lesotho appeared first on CLTS Foundation Global.