The event marked the release of CSE’s annual State of India’s Environment report by eminent jurist and former Supreme Court Justice Madan B Lokur and CSE Director General Sunita Narain. The conclave saw the participation of over 80 journalists from across India. The event saw numerous in-depth sessions on a wide range of topics ranging from climate change, agriculture, air pollution and mobility, sanitation and waste management, human-wildlife conflict and environmental governance. The sessions were chaired and conducted by eminent experts from the respective fields like K J Ramesh, Director General, Indian Meteorology Department, Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Government of India; Bhure Lal, Chairperson of the Chairperson, Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority (EPCA); Gufran Baig, Director of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune; Ajay Deshpande, former expert member of the National Green Tribunal; Bharti Chaturvedi, Director, Chintan; and Yadavendra V Jhala, Head of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology Department at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun.

Megha Sen, Programme Officer represented the Foundation at the event on 12th February as a speaker on the session ‘Sanitation & Our Rivers: Tale of the Toilet-A Half Story’. The session brought together researchers who had examined the sanitation scenario of India very closely. India has inched very near to the coveted status of an ODF nation as thousands of toilets have been built and access to sanitation increased exponentially. The question still lies on whether we are seeing the complete picture and what does it mean to be truly ODF?

The session was anchored by Sudhir Mishra, Resident Editor, Nav Bharat Times, Lucknow & Raju Nayak, Editor, Lokmat, Goa. The speakers in the session were Suresh Rohilla, Senior Programme Director, Water and Wastewater Management, CSE; Sushmita Sengupta, Programme Manager, Rural Water and Sanitation Unit, CSE – Overview; Nazar Khalid, Research Fellow, Research Institute for Compassionate Economics (RICE), Gurugram; Avani Kapur, Director, Accountability Initiative, Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi and Megha Sen, Programme Officer, CLTS Foundation Global, Kolkata.

Release of the report ‘Managing Septage in Cities of Uttar Pradesh’ at the Anil Agarwal Dialogue, CSE 2019

Suresh Rohilla had a very interesting presentation on the analysis of the assessment report of the excreta management in 66 cities across Uttar Pradesh. Alarming statistics were revealed where across the state of Uttar Pradesh, 73% of the wastewater is untreated and 80% of the sewage connection is concentrated only in 7 cities of Uttar Pradesh. The on-site challenges of managing solid waste remain largely unaddressed at the policy level and these issues were brought out and discussed. The session also saw the release of the report named Managing Septage in the cities of Uttar Pradesh.

Sushmita Sengupta, Programme Manager, Rural Water and Sanitation Unit, CSE – Overview, presenting at the Anil Agarwal Dialogue, CSE 2019

Sushmita Sengupta, raised the question of the very real challenge of whether the toilets that are being built as per the statistical data are in fact viable for the purpose at all or not? Nazhar Khalid gave an in-depth analysis of the RICE research undertaken across 11 districts of 4 states of India on the factors of caste and religion playing a major role in shaping the sanitation scenario. Avani Kapur brought the session’s focus on the basics of why sanitation needs to be given the importance that it demands and its widespread linkages with other aspects of human development – health, livelihood, dignity, women empowerment and so on.

Megha Sen focussed on Behaviour Change and its effects on Swachh Bharat Mission: Stories from India. It highlighted the power of Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) to unleash the hidden potentials and capabilities of local communities to solve their own problems and take charge of their lives through collective behaviour change. It focussed on the achievements of CLTS as an approach in fast-tracking Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Kalyani towards achieving the ODF status through anecdotes from the Foundation’s extensive involvement in these states.

Megha Sen, Programme Officer, CLTS Foundation Global presenting at the Anil Agarwal Dialogue, CSE 2019

Haryana and Himachal Pradesh are amongst the first five states to have achieved ODF status under Swachh Bharat Mission. Kalyani, a census town in West Bengal, is the first ODF town through Urban CLTS approach. The major drivers of a successful CLTS implementation in these areas were political and bureaucratic commitment and their belief in the power of communities to achieve collective behaviour change. It brought to light such stories from the field and emphasises the need of the hour for a radical change in top-down development strategies. The presentation was concluded with the expectation that the Swachh Bharat Mission would now focus on addressing the issue of sustained behaviour change for long-term health outcomes and promote the communities to move along the sanitation ladder.

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The Regional Program on Transboundary Landscapes has been advocating the use of the landscape approach, which delineates areas based on shared ecosystems instead of administrative boundaries, for managing biodiversity in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region – an ecological buffer zone and home to four global biodiversity hotspots. The KSL programme area includes three countries India (Pithoragarh district), Pulan County, Tibetan Autonomous Region, PR China and far west districts of Nepal like Humla, Baichang, Baitadi and Darchula covering a total area of 31252 sq.km and nearly 1 million human population.

Congratulations to Dr. Rajan Kotru and his team for their exemplary contribution towards sustainable mountain development and for winning this prestigious award!

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Photo courtesy: Page One

Philippines is in the best position to become Open Defecation Free in the next two years: Kamal Kar

“Philippines is in the best position to achieve Zero Open Defecation (ZOD) in the next two years!”. This was a challenge posed to the Department of Health (DOH) by the pioneer of Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), Dr. Kamal Kar, in a gathering organised by UNICEF for various government and development partners working on sanitation, held in Manila on May 29.

Philippines aims to become Open Defecation Free by 2022 | Manila Conference

Dr. Maria Francia Laxamana, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health, affirmed that achieving ZOD is one of the legacies of the department, and targets to declare the country ZOD by 2022.

Laxamana recalled how the government used to give out toilet bowls in the hope of ending open defecation. However, this has not worked when toilet bowls were not used, because the problem on changing household’s behavior was not changed.

CLTS is a participatory approach to helping households abandon the practice of open defecation. It helps residents in a community realize that having no sanitary toilets is a risk not just to one family but to the whole community as well.

”We have learned from this experience well, and that is why DOH has rolled out CLTS as a key strategy in enabling communities to analyze their sanitation conditions and to collectively decide and take responsibility in stopping open defecation,” said Laxamana.

Kamal Kar in the workshop.

Since the implementation of CLTS in 2008, a shift in the pace of the communities declaring ZOD happened after a majority of development partners signed up to support the government and implement a phased approach to total sanitation (PhATS). From mid-2012 to the mid-2016, ODF achievement was accelerated through CLTS and PhATS, with success rates of 82%.

Emphasizing that no Filipino should be left behind, Laxamana assured that DOH and partners would work towards achieving these goals and would ensure that programs would be implemented with an equity lens and in such a way that would not undermine the community’s sense of agency and resourcefulness.

Also Read: 

How this African country is rewriting its sanitation story in the SDG era

9 innovative ways to make Bijnor open defecation free district

As of 2015, 7.4 million Filipinos still do not have access to sanitation facilities, and are possibly resorting to open defecation. Open defecation is a dangerous practice that results to people being at risk of getting diarrhea, cholera, and other waterborne diseases; intestinal worm infections; and malnutrition and stunting of children.

Kamal Kar.

To date, around 1,062 barangays have been declared open defecation free and 20 municipalities were able to eliminate OD completely.

The event, “Accelerating Sustainable Zero Open Defecation Programming: Supporting the Poorest and Most Vulnerable,” was held at New World Manila Bay Hotel on May 29.

Kamal Kar is the pioneer of the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), and Prof. Robert Chambers of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) is the founder of participatory rural appraisal tools.

This was originally published here.

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CLTS Foundation Global’s intervention in Swaziland.

CLTS Foundation Global in Africa: TOTs workshop in Swaziland

Participants gather at the five- day CLTS Training of Trainers workshop from 27 to 31 March 2017 organised by CLTS Foundation Global and UNICEF ESARO. Photo: Dr Kamal Kar

The CLTS Foundation Global team in partnership with UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO) has been invited to Swaziland to conduct a five- day CLTS Training of Trainers workshop from 27 to 31 March 2017.

This is the first CLTS ToT training that has been facilitated in Sidvokodvo area of Manzini region in Swaziland by Dr. Kamal Kar, Chairman of CLTS Foundation Global along with CLTS Foundation Global’s team member, Leonard Mukosha, a CLTS Champion, and Consultant. The program aims to achieve better sanitation situation in Swaziland by implementing CLTS and eliminating open defecation (OD). On the first day of the CLTS ToT training workshop, Dr. Kar carried out an advocacy session to aware the dignitaries about the importance of CLTS approach and to strengthen CLTS in the country. On the first day of the training workshop, Dr. Kar met the Principal Secretary, the Permanent Secretary and the Director of Environment Sanitation Division of the Ministry of Health.

Participants gather at the five- day CLTS Training of Trainers workshop from 27 to 31 March 2017 organised by CLTS Foundation Global and UNICEF ESARO. Photo: Dr Kamal Kar

Swaziland is a sovereign state in Southern Africa. Its neighbouring countries are Mozambique on its northeast and South Africa on its northwest and south. The approximate population is 1.2 million and its administrative capital is Mbabane and legislative capital is Lobamba. After Swaziland’s independence in 1968, the country was divided into the four regions of Hhohho, Manzini, Lubombo and Shiselweni.

Leonard Mukosha talking to the participants at the five- day CLTS Training of Trainers workshop from 27 to 31 March 2017 organised by CLTS Foundation Global and UNICEF ESARO. Photo: Dr Kamal Kar

Sanitation coverage is estimated to be approximately between 59%-63% of the country¹. In rural areas, the situation is worse than urban settings with only 46% sanitation coverage. In Swaziland, the prevalence of infant and under-five children mortality rate (per 1,000 live births) are 85 and 102 deaths, respectively. Lubombo region has the highest cases of under-five mortality rate (deaths per 1,000 live births) of 115 when compared to rates in other regions, namely; Manzini (112), Shiselweni (100) and Hhohho (96). According to UNICEF, Swaziland has the highest HIV prevalence rate in the world².

It is hoped that the five-day CLTS training workshop, in Swaziland will pave the way forward to enhance implementation and scale up the program towards national ODF status.

A demonstration with community members in the nearby village. Photo: Dr Kamal Kar

A demonstration with community members in the nearby village. Photo: Dr Kamal Kar

^{________________________________________________}

1. ^{WHO/UNICEFJMP, 2015}
2. ^{http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14095303}

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Photo credit: Lefaso.Net

Burkina Faso has made the least progress in sanitation during the MDG period in spite of the fact that most of its neighbouring countries made remarkable progress during the later part of MDG. In Burkina Faso, 75% of the rural population still defecate in the open. The incidence of diarrhoea and child mortality rate of Burkina Faso is alarming. However, Burkina Faso still remains the only country in the Western and Central Africa region that has been providing household sanitation subsidy and also has not institutionalized CLTS in its national sanitation policy.

Almost 24 countries of Western and Central Africa, have institutionalized CLTS with no hardware household toilet subsidy as a non-negotiable principle into their national sanitation policy. The achievements in terms of sanitation outcome have been remarkable in these countries.

Photo credit: Lefaso.Net

Realizing the lack of an enabling environment in scaling up of CLTS in Burkina, major actors of sanitation including UNICEF in Burkina have been trying to influence the government policy to move beyond the subsidy approach and to adopt community empowerment approach of CLTS.

However, Burkina Faso is one of the last countries in the region to adopt the no subsidy strategy in the government policy and to become open defecation free (ODF). Recently, CLTS Foundation Global was invited by the Government of Burkina Faso and UNICEF Burkina to organize and facilitate a two days institutional triggering workshop on CLTS with the senior ministers, policy and decision makers and heads of national and international organizations in Ouagadougou. Dr. Kamal Kar led the triggering workshop with colleagues from CLTS Foundation Global, UNICEF WCARO, and Burkina Faso.

Photo credit: Lefaso.Net

Recently, Dr. Kamal Kar visited Beniou village on the invitation of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the province of Sissili. On Saturday, February 4, 2017, he facilitated and witnessed the triggering session for ending open defecation in Burkina Faso. During the triggering session, Dr. Kamal Kar has mentioned that the communities should no longer wait for years for state subsidy by continuing to eat their poo. He is absolutely assured and convinced that the people of Burkina Faso can take control of the alarming situation and stop open defecation.

The CLTS triggering session got featured in an esteem news portal of Burkina Faso, lefaso.net. Though it is in French but is indeed a good and informative read.

The article was originally published here in French: http://lefaso.net/spip.php?article75656

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The CLTS Foundation Global team in partnership with UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office ( ESARO) has been invited by the Government of Eritrea to conduct a refresher training, ODF protocol development and also to implement a diagnostic tool called CLTS Rapid Appraisal Protocol (CRAP) from 13 Feb to 17 Feb 2017 in Eritrea to review the status and quality of CLTS.

CRAP will provide a quick assessment of the health of the CLTS programme delivered at large scale in the country. The quality of implementation of CLTS on the ground varies immensely from country to country in the region. CRAP involves a series of participatory exercises involving stakeholders at the national, regional and district levels to analyze and reflect on their country’s sanitation program. The tool is designed to identify the strengths and gaps existing in the current implementation process and made the necessary rectifications to improve the programme.

Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) was adopted by the Government of Eritrea in its national policy in late 2007. Prior to the introduction of the community led approach, the focus of sanitation interventions carried out in the country focused on producing “high end” toilets with a subsidy that included five bags of cement, iron bars for reinforcement, vent pipes and re-useable moulds for the floor slab. As funds were limited and families were waiting for subsidies, very few toilets were built and the usage of the constructed latrines was very less.

The adoption of the CLTS approach created a shift in hygiene and sanitation promotion. Consequently, a considerable amount of capacity building through training was done for all stakeholders at various levels. Regional advocacy workshops on CLTS were carried out in six regions between July 2008 and February 2009. These were attended by more than 400 participants (including regional governors, sub-regional administrators, higher government officials, religious leaders, regional assembly members and implementers of sanitation programmes). In early 2009, the Ministry of Health, through their Environmental Health Unit, was ready to scale up CLTS and launched a nationwide sanitation programme with the assistance of UNICEF in 46 villages.

Kamal Kar, the Chairman of CLTS Foundation Global visited Eritrea in June 2009 during which he carried out a review of the programme as well as advocacy to strengthen CLTS in the country. During his mission, a week-long national “hands-on” CLTS ToT training for 46 participants (Public Health Technicians, Sanitarians, community Integrated Management of Child Illnesses (IMCI) focal persons and nurses) from all over the country was conducted. As of May 2014, 869 villages out of 2,644 have been triggered in the six regions of the country with 489 villages (18 % of the rural villages) already declared Open Defecation Free. Since 2007 when the CLTS approach was introduced in Eritrea, 146,700 households (or an estimated 733,000 people, 31 % of the rural population) have stopped open defecation in all the six regions of the country. The National Rural Sanitation Policy and Strategy Direction was launched in October 2009 and this policy fully supports the CLTS approach.

It is hoped that the refresher training, ODF Protocol and the administration of the CRAP tool by the sanitation teams in Eritrea will pave the way forward to enhance implementation and scale up the programme towards national ODF status.

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In most of the 24 countries of Western and Central Africa, CLTS has been institutionalized into national sanitation policy with no hardware household toilet subsidy as a non-negotiable principle, and the achievements in terms of sanitation outcome have been remarkable in many countries. However, Burkina Faso still remains the only country in the region that has been providing household sanitation subsidy.

Burkina Faso has made the least progress in sanitation during the MDG period in spite of the fact that most of its neighboring countries made remarkable progress during the later part of MDG. In Burkina Faso, 75% of the rural population still defecate in the open. The incidence of diarrhea and child mortality rate of Burkina Faso are alarming. The stunting rate is 35% which is one of the highest in the region. The Ministry of Water and Sanitation (Government of Burkina Faso) and a few international NGOs like Plan International, Water Aid, and IRC-supported NGOs have been providing an upfront subsidy for toilet construction, yet claiming to apply CLTS approach. Although CLTS was introduced in Burkina in 2007, there are merely 200 ODF villages so far. By any standard, this is a very poor achievement. CLTS with hardware subsidy seems to be the norm of sanitation practices in Burkina.

Realizing the lack of an enabling environment in scaling up of CLTS in Burkina, major actors of sanitation including UNICEF in Burkina have been trying to influence the govt. policy to move away from the subsidy approach and adopt community empowerment approach of CLTS. Another believer of household sanitation subsidy, the neighboring Nigeria, was the last in the region to adopt the no subsidy strategy in the govt. policy recently.

CLTS Foundation Global was invited by the government of Burkina Faso and Unicef Burkina to organize and facilitate a two days institutional triggering workshop on CLTS with the senior ministers, policy and decision makers and heads of national and international organizations in Ouagadougou. Dr. Kamal Kar led the triggering workshop with colleagues from CLTS Foundation Global, UNICEF WCARO, and Burkina Faso.

The two-days national level Institutional Triggering Workshop was held on 31^st Jan & 1^st Feb 2017 at Hotel Laico Ouagadougou wherein 45 senior officers and professionals from 16 organizations including government ministries, global donor agencies, national and local NGOs participated. Before the workshop, a high-level breakfast meeting was organized by Unicef where 4 Ministers, namely Dr. Smalia Ouedraogo, Honorable Minister of Health; Mrs Alizatou Rosine Coulibaly, Honourable Minister of Finance and Budget; Mr Ambroise Niougou Ouedraogo, Honorable Minister of Water and Sanitation; Mrs Metsi Makhetha, Resident Coordination of PNUD met Dr. Kamal Kar, Chairman CLTS Foundation Global, Dr. Anne Vincent (Country Representative of UNICEF Burkina Faso), Mr. Danielle Spaltoff, Chief of WASH, UNICEF Burkina Faso and Ms. Gaelle, Consultant, UNICEF and discussed the sanitation scenario in Burkina Faso.

The outcome of the workshop was positive wherein the participants discussed on the present sanitation policy of the government of Burkina and highlighted the government’s priority to make the country open defecation free. They called for more capacity building inputs on CLTS and came up with a set of recommendations to fast track the access to sanitation by ending open defecation.

The workshop was held with two major objectives: to analyze the enabling environment for CLTS, and to identify the impediments in scaling up CLTS without subsidy. As an outcome of the workshop, the participants summarized their learnings and understanding of achieving ODF communities through CLTS method and came up with a set of recommendations to the government for strictly adhering to CLTS and to stop upfront household toilet subsidy. It remains to be seen how the government of Burkina Faso finally takes a call on the subsidy issue and the coordination between various stakeholders.

It must be reiterated that CLTS with toilet subsidy amounts to an abuse of CLTS, and it is not happening in any other country of western Africa except for Burkina Faso. So, this workshop was used as an opportunity to trigger the partner NGOs as well as the govt. officers to either do CLTS and stop upfront toilet subsidy or to continue giving toilet subsidy and drop CLTS.

It is clear that most countries of the world are on the track of CLTS with a clear realization of what enabling environment is needed to scale up CLTS. The number of countries using toilet subsidy approach is reducing very fast globally, and so many countries are changing. Although world’s largest number of people practicing open defecation live in India, the total number of such people in sub-Saharan Africa is reducing. With Burkina Faso adopting the right approach to ensuring proper enabling environment, the sanitation scenario of western central Africa will change very fast.

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1st AFCOSAN: Better Sanitation for All through CLTS

Her Excellency Rula Ghani, the First Lady, while speaking at the inauguration of AFCOSAN on 22 November said that sanitation and drinking water were the top priorities of the Afghan government.“Sanitation is a key driver for our government. It has to be scaled up for the better health of our children and women. Unfortunately, the lack of clean toilets in schools is a concern. I hope the discussions from AFCOSAN will help in finding solutions,” she said.

The Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD), H.E. Engineer Nasir Ahmad Durrani said: “According to the latest Afghan Living Conditions Survey (ALCS) of 2014, 81 percent of the Afghan population use some kind of toilets. This is a higher proportion than some of our neighbors. Yet, 19 percent of the population still practices open defecation. WHO and UNICEF estimated that since 2001, over five million Afghans gained access to an improved sanitation facility and that the number of people practicing open defecation fell by 1.6 million, to around 4.5 million people today”.

AFCOSAN I was hosted by the Govt. of Afghanistan and UNICEF from 22-25 November with a declaration to include community-led total sanitation in the country’s Citizen Charter and eliminate open defecation throughout the country in a phased manner by 2025.

CLTS Foundation Global was the only Indian representative from South Asia at AFCOSAN. Dr. Kamal Kar, Chairman, CLTS Foundation Global who was the only high level delegate from India invited by UNICEF (the co-host of the conference) made a promising speech and engaged with the Minister for Rural Development and Deputy Minister for Rural Development saying that Afghanistan has immense potential of becoming the first Open Defecation Free country in South Asia after Bangladesh during the SDG period if it maintains to abide by the fundamental principles of CLTS.

On the challenges of scaling up CLTS in Afghanistan, Dr Kar shared his experience from working in several other Asian and African countries.

He said: “I think it’s a very promising start. This is my first visit to Afghanistan. However, CLTS was first introduced in this country in 2007 through my trainers from Pakistan whom I had trained in the North Western Province in the last decade. Afghan context CLTS is promising but they have the ensure that the core fundamentals of CLTS are intact and not sidelined.”

Dr. Kar further added: “In inaccessible provinces of Afghanistan, we have to transform the villages into learning laboratories and identify the local natural leaders and community consultants. We can learn this from Bangladesh – another Muslim country which has transformed itself as an ODF country through CLTS. We have to identify the natural leaders from the villages and train them to trigger neighbouring villages which we have seen in countries such as Cambodia and Ghana. The natural leaders and community consultants will also need to be rewarded for exceptional community level work and the government can think of inducting the best ones into the government rank and order. The local clergy and chiefdoms as we have seen in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Zambia has to be triggered to influence a wider critical mass for behaviour change of local communities.”

Mr. Durrani observed: “Our aim is to make the country ODF by 2025 and we will continue to practice Afghanistan Led CLTS. We will improvise on our best practices on sanitation. MRRD has been trying to reduce the practice of open defecation in rural areas and also make people aware of good hygiene practices. Govt. has included sanitation in the Citizen Charter and it aims to increase the access of sanitation coverage by 2025. We are committed to international agreements such as SACOSAN and national policies.”

Graphics source: CLTS Foundation Global

Adele Khodr, UNICEF Representative, Afghanistan said that 5 million people in the country do not have access to toilets i.e. 19 % of the country’s 33 million population. “I wish the WASH partners and ministers will scale up CLTS in the coming days. We are committed to WASH in Schools and public centers,” she said.

Word and Photography credits: Amit Sengupta/CLTS Foundation Global. This news is filed from Kabul and based on the writer’s participation in AFCOSAN.

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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.

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