Dr Kamal Kar
Chairperson, Community-Led Total Sanitation Foundation

Honorary Associate, Resource Politics Cluster, IDS

Dr. Kamal Kar. Photo Credits: Amit Sengupta / CLTS Foundation Global

Would the idea of achieving an open defecation free (ODF) world by 2030 be like chasing the wildest dream in view of the grim global sanitation situation and the great sanitation crisis of South Asia region? It is crucial to position the countries of the region against the present SDG 6.2 with a focus on health outcomes.

Dr Kamal Kar will raise some of these vital questions in this talk:

• Are the country governments of South and South East Asia prepared to launch a local community driven campaign using their own resources?
• What is the role of the government policy in enhancing the total sanitation access? How have the lessons from the past and of MDGs been incorporated in the government policies in adjusting their ODF national targets and roadmaps?
• How are the countries going to tackle sanitation challenges in the context of large scale migration due to natural disasters, humanitarian conflicts and unplanned urbanization?

The talk will provide insights into how national and regional policies can use sanitation as an entry point and create an enabling environment for holistic development.

Where: Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK

When: Monday 18^th December. 13.00 – 14.30 hours

Convening Space

Everyone is welcome to attend!

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Dr Kamal Kar interacting with Mr Cheary Pom, Director, MoRD, Govt. of Cambodia and HE Dr Yim Chhay Ly, Deputy Prime Minister, Cambodia. Photo: Amit Sengupta

The conference was inaugurated by the Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia, HE Dr. Yim Chhay Ly who reiterated the need to accelerate access to sanitation in Cambodia through CLTS approach. The Minister of Rural Development, HE Dr. Ouk Rabun committed to speed up the momentum of sanitation in Cambodia.

HE Dr Yim Chhay Ly, Deputy Prime Minister, Cambodia inaugurating the regional conference in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Photo: Amit Sengupta

More than 100 WASH experts from Cambodia, Vietnam, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines, Timor Leste, India, Pakistan, Nepal deliberated on creating a pathway towards an ODF South East Asia in the 3-day conference. Senior representatives of the governments (Myanmar, Timor Leste, Indonesia, Philippines, India, Lao PDR), WASH experts from International development agencies like Plan International, SNV, WSSCC (Geneva), World Bank, UNICEF, Water Aid, World Vision, and several national NGOs from Cambodia and international media participated in the conference.

Mr Cheary Pom, Director, MoRD, Cambodia making his country presentation in the conference. Photo: Amit Sengupta

HE Dr Ouk Rabun, Minister for Rural Development at the closure ceremony of the conference. Photo: Amit Sengupta

Mr. Chreay Pom, Director, Department of Rural Health Care, Ministry of Rural Development, Royal Government of Cambodia said: “CLTS has contributed significantly to improving our rural sanitation particularly reducing open defecation practice which is a major problem for our country.  However, accelerating progress to enable complete eradication of open defecation and sustaining our ODF achievements to date require more synergy with different initiatives.  I am therefore hopeful that this Conference will bring good outcomes that could support us in our continuing efforts to achieve our rural sanitation and hygiene vision.”

Mr Chander Badloe, Regional Advisor, UNICEF making a presentation on ‘Overview of Sanitation in South East Asia’. Photo: Amit Sengupta

Dr. Kamal Kar, Chairman, CLTS Foundation Global in his key note speech said that countries which has made progress on sanitation during the MDGs had some of these key commonalities: “They were led by Ministry of Health that focused on health outcomes than toilet infrastructures or counting of toilets; they had a clear national sanitation strategy with a clear road map; most of these countries had a wide network of Natural Leaders and Community Consultants; they also witnessed the emergence of CLTS Champions at the highest leadership levels. Moreover, these countries were able to change the mindset of donor agencies and create an appropriate enabling environment that helped in converging the efforts of multiple actors towards realizing the national goal rather than disconnected and piecemeal success on CLTS.”

Mr Lamberto Pinto, PHD, making a presentation on Timor Leste. Photo: Amit Sengupta

Some of the key sessions of the conference were ‘Overview of sanitation in the entire South East Asia region’, deliberations on the MDG experience of sanitation in the region, key challenges the countries face going forward towards achieving SDG and the critical building blocks for scaling-up in the region. One of the interesting sessions was the discussion on Post ODF Sustainability.

Dr Kar reiterated that: “As countries from the South East Asia region move towards the SDGs, they have to make a holistic approach to sanitation right from policy framework, in programming and implementation. Sanitation has to be everyone’s business by involving diverse stakeholders. Sanitation outcomes have to be measured in terms of health outcomes, not by counting of toilets.”

Dr. Than Lwin Tun,
Regional Public Health Director,
Sagaing Region, Myanmar making his country presentation. Photo: Amit Sengupta

Deliberations from this conference will be applied to develop a roadmap and action plan for the South East Asia region towards achieving ODF nations in the coming years.

CLTS Foundation Global is committed to facilitate capacity building and provide strategic roadmap to all Governments and international development agencies of the South East Asia region in marching towards the country’s ODF dream respectively.

More than 100 WASH participants from 12 countries participated in the workshop. Photo: Amit Sengupta

Some more photos from the conference:

Syed Shah Nasir, Executive Director, IRSP, Pakistan. Photo: Amit Sengupta

Dr. P Ulaganathan, District Magistrate, Murshidabad, Govt. of West Bengal. Photo: Amit Sengupta

James Wicken, Country Director, Water Aid Cambodia. Photo: Amit Sengupta

Dr Imran Agus Nurali, Director, Directorate of Environmental Health, Govt. of Indonesia. Photo: Amit Sengupta

Kiettisak, Ketsadasak from Plan International, Lao PDR. Photo: Amit Sengupta

Hybunna Hang from Plan International, Cambodia. Photo: Amit Sengupta

If you want to get in touch with CLTS Foundation Global, please write to cltsfoundation@gmail.com

Report: CLTS REGIONAL CONFERENCE REPORT-15 to17 Nov,2017, Phnom Penh

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CLTS Foundation Global organizes Training of Trainers workshop on Community-Led Total Sanitation in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh

Dr. Kamal Kar being felicitated by the District Magistrate Dr. Sarita Mohan, IAS at the inaugural ceremony of the TOT workshop.

The TOT workshop on CLTS led by Dr. Kamal Kar, chairman, CLTS Foundation Global was organized with an aim of instilling in the participants a better and heightened understanding of the challenges in sanitation. They are expected to increase their knowledge about CLTS, develop necessary skills to facilitate training or apply CLTS in their area and develop action plan for goals set by community.

Dr. Kar addressing the participants of the TOT workshop.

The workshop was attended by Dr. Sarika Mohan, IAS, District of Sitapur and several block development officials and Swachh Bharat representatives from blocks. 68 participants from 19 development blocks of Sitapur District, apart from volunteers (Swacchagrahis) and officials from Panchayati Raj Department (GoUP), and administrators were present during the five day training.

As an immediate outcome of the TOT workshop, local community have dug around 135 pits on their own in the Gram Panchayat of Meernagar in Parsendi block.  The community took charge of their own toilet construction by digging those pits. This was witnessed by the ADO of the block and the community consultants as well.

Photographs of action taken by the community:

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The Ministry of Rural Development, Royal Government of Cambodia and CLTS Foundation Global in association with Plan International, Cambodia  are jointly hosting a Regional conference  ‘From Communities to ODF Nations: Fast tracking ODF South East Asia’ in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on 15-17 November 2017. The conference will be inaugurated by the Deputy Prime Minister, Royal Government of Cambodia, His Excellency, Dr. Yim Chhayly. The Deputy Prime Minister is expected to welcome the congregation of more than 100 international delegates from South Asia, South East Asia and the Pacific regions. The conference will witness the active participation of development partners such as SNV, WSSCC, Cambodia, Water Aid and UNICEF along with sanitation experts from the governments, UN agencies, INGOs and other key stakeholders from the region.

Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) has been instrumental in enhancing sanitation access for millions of people, especially the rural population, across the developing world, during the past two decades. By the end of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) period, CLTS was institutionalised in the national sanitation policy of more than 35 nations and rolled out as the key implementation strategy in over 65 countries across Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Pacific regions.

While significant progress has been achieved in the East and South East Asia and the Pacific region, an estimated 659 million people continue to remain without access to improved sanitation, and 83 million people in the region still practice open defecation.[1] This conference aims to address critical questions towards meeting the SDG goal 6.2 of universal sanitation such as: What lessons do South East Asia’s (Cambodia, Myanmar, Lao PDR, Vietnam,  Indonesia, The Philippines etc.)? What does the MDG experience in sanitation hold for achieving an ODF South East Asia region by 2030? What were the crucial factors for success and failure in sanitation programming across the different nations? What are the key challenges that the respective countries face going forward? What are the critical building blocks for scaling up sanitation in the region?

Deliberations from this conference will be applied to develop a roadmap and action plan for the region towards achieving ODF nations in the next few years.

Dates: 15-16-17 November

Venue: Phonm Penh, Cambodia

For more information, please contact:

Amit Sengupta

Communications Manager

CLTS Foundation Global

Email: amit@cltsfoundation.org

www.cltsfoundation.org

Skype: amitmishti

Mobile: +91-9717984406

[1] https://www.unicef.org/eapro/Second_Review_of_Community_Led_Total_Sanitation_in_East_Asia_and_Pacific.pdf

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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)

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What is Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) –Top Things to Know

What is Community Led Total Sanitation CLTS. Creatives by Amit Sengupta/CLTS Foundation Global

What exactly is Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS)?

CLTS means Community Led Total Sanitation that mobilises communities to completely eliminate open defecation. They are facilitated to conduct their own appraisal and analysis and take their own action to become open defecation-free. CLTS aims at behavioural change and invests in community mobilisation instead of hardware, thereby shifting focus from toilet construction for individual households to creation of open defecation-free villages.

CLTS is a time-tested process that has successfully transformed policy thinking and action from toilet construction to the process of collective hygiene behaviour change in more than 65 countries throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America, giving over 40 million people an opportunity to spontaneously stop open defecation (OD) and live in an open defecation free (ODF) environment. (Source)

Watch these videos on CLTS:

What is Community-Led Total Sanitation and how does it work? – Interview with Kamal Kar – By WSSCC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEY7zaUp7BI

The BMJ – Medical innovations: Shit matters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NSwL1TCaoY 

How exactly does the community bring about change in itself?

The goal of ODF is achieved through mobilising the community. As a result, community members use their own initiative to build latrines. CLTS does not identify standards or designs for latrines, but encourages local creativeness. This leads to greater ownership, affordability and therefore sustainability. A very important concept which is borne out in CLTS is that community members gradually climb the ‘sanitation ladder’, improving their latrines over time, according to their increased understanding of the functionality of latrines, the benefits they have experienced from using them, and the resources they are able to commit. (Source)

Importance of local empowerment is vital in Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS)

Chairman of CLTS Foundation Global and Pioneer of CLTS – Kamal Kar, during a CLTS Triggering in a village in Africa. Photo: CLTS Foundation Global

Each community finds its own method. It is about local initiative. So every CLTS intervention would be unique. The villagers are brought together and asked to show the dirtiest place in the area and also spot places they use for defecation. It is a sort of walk of shame. Then they are often shown a glass of water in which a blade of grass with faeces is dipped. They are asked if they can use it. They are then told how flies do the same thing to water bodies and food consumed by the villagers and how they are continuously consuming excreta. It is a change in mindset through shock and surprise. Once that is done, they don’t wait for subsidies to start using a toilet.

What is the origin of Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) and when did it begin?

CLTS was pioneered in Bangladesh by Kamal Kar (founder chairman of CLTS Foundation Global) while he was evaluating an NGO’s traditional subsidised sanitation programme in 1999-2000. They wanted to convince the NGO to stop subsidising toilet construction, because subsidies in the past had not led to community ownership and toilet usage. Instead, they suggested that the NGO should encourage people to help themselves. The CLTS process they developed spread fast within Bangladesh among both Bangladeshi and international NGOs. At the heart of the CLTS approach is a shift away from subsidising toilet construction for individual households and towards changing the attitudes and behaviour of the whole community in order to stop OD. If whole communities choose to go ODF, then every community member benefits, since the entire environment becomes cleaner. If only a few people remain entrenched in their practice of OD, then the whole community remains at some level of risk.

Watch these videos on CLTS in Bangladesh:

Community Led Total Sanitation in Bangladesh Part 3 of 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzEpqIRNzOw

Community Led Total Sanitation in Bangladesh Part 2 of 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex-7T0voXBg

Community Led Total Sanitation in Bangladesh Part 1 of 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmghnAfBONk

Facilitating, and not instructing the community is one of the correct methodologies of CLTS

The facilitator’s job during CLTS triggering is not to convince the community to stop Open Defecation and start constructing toilets. Instead, it is to assist the community in analysing the local sanitation situation. This generally triggers a sense of disgust and embarrassment and motivates the community to stop OD. It is important that the facilitator does not preach or tell people what to do, but instead asks simple questions to draw their attention to the issues.

Throughout the process, community members are encouraged to use local terms to describe faeces rather than the polite terms, in order to break the taboos surrounding sanitation.

What is Community Led Total Sanitation CLTS

How many people are living in Open Defecation Free environment due to CLTS?

Globally, 40 million people are living in Open Defecation Free environment as a result of implementation of Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS). According to Kamal Kar: “It has spread to more than 69 countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America where more than 40 million people are now living in open defecation free (ODF) environments. CLTS has also been mainstreamed in the sanitation policies of more than 25 countries in these regions.” Source

Why is the health aspect under Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) not highlighted?

Unfortunately sanitation does not come under the Ministry of Health in countries like India. Otherwise, it could have rewarded states with reduced cases of cholera and stunting.

Challenges of scaling up CLTS with quality

What is Community Led Total Sanitation CLTS

The process of rapid scaling-up has however come with its own set of challenges. The poor quality of CLTS facilitation and gaps in ODF verification and certification is reflected in the lack of ODF sustainability. In the rush to achieve the numbers, many agencies have reduced CLTS to a bunch of triggering tools, compromising the very ethos upon which CLTS is conceptualised. In other words, CLTS is an outcome-focused approach, the success of which is reflected in the long-term sustained improvement in human health, triggered through a series of local actions by an empowered community. Effective implementation of CLTS therefore demands an in-depth understanding of the socio-political and behavioural processes involved in triggering and sustaining collective behaviour change which results in an improved health outcome for all, which is often missing in most CLTS implementation programmes.

Read: Kamal Kar: Can Uttar Pradesh unleash the untapped potential of CLTS in India? 

Read: Kamal Kar: The struggle to overcome sanitation subsidy monster in India

Not just in rural, CLTS is also rolled out in urban and peri-urban areas

Escalating challenges of urban sanitation call for urgent strategic action. The CLTS experience in urban and peri-urban towns and municipalities in Asia (Kalyani Municipality in West Bengal, India and Gularia Municipality in Nepal) and Africa, though limited, have taught us that it is important for elected people’s representatives managing the municipalities and city corporations to deeply understand the realities of poor migrants and slum dwellers, and to involve them in collective decision-making processes for improved basic facilities through pro-poor governance. This calls for strong political will and positive institutional attitudes towards people who are otherwise seen as illegal or unauthorised inhabitants of a city. Unlike in rural areas, there is also a need for strong partnerships together with local municipalities to deal with waste issues. Furthermore, issues of shrinking spaces and escalating land prices, coupled with providing subsidies, throw up related and important challenges that need to be addressed seriously for sustainable sanitation.

Compiled by Amit Sengupta, India Communications Manager, CLTS Foundation Global

If you loved this blog, give it a shoutout by sharing it with your friends and colleagues and your wider network. If you want us to include more questions on and around Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), let us know in the comments below or write to amit@cltsfoundation.org. We would be happy to respond to those and incorporate your queries on this blog. 

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