CLTS: What next?

Ugep town is not a major city but with a growing population over 120,000 it represents many growing urban areas of Africa. If sanitation facilities, and the attitude and behaviour towards hygiene can be changed in areas such as this, I feel that more top-down approaches such as large scale improvements in water supply by national or regional governments may have a chance of being successful in the long-term.

In similar towns such as Ugep town, Kisumu and Manyatta in Kenya, are more recent examples of more localised community based approaches to water while the city has continued to grow. Well water forms a huge part of the water supply and pit latrines are the main source of faecal disposal. The persistence of these own-key arrangement eventually led to the formalisation of the local council as a water representative for the region (Drangert at al., 2002: 361).

While privatisation may seem the most viable option, it has been studied that infact "privatisation fails to address some of the fundamentals constraints such as finance, the politicised nature of service delivery and lack of access to the poor" (Bayliss, 2003: 507).

While I am definitely an advocate for community based approaches to starting the improvement of health in growing urban areas, I do also feel that CLTS may not be an one-stop shop for success. To compliment this behavioural change encouraged by CLTS, I feel that complimentary approaches such as the Household-centred environmental sanitation approach (HCES) to provide structured planning to ensure the sustainability of basic services (Luthi et al., 2009: 61). The 10 step HCES approach, is an example of the community based approach, complimented with a formal structured approach that will allow it to be scaled provide long term assistance.

10 Step HCES approach (Luthi et al., 2009: 53)

Thank you for listening and I hope this gave you an insight into the issues associated with community based approaches and the scope for it to be scaled!

Reference List:

Bayliss, K. (2003) 'Utility Privatisation in Sub-Saharan Africa: a case study of water', The Journal of Modern African Studies, 41, 4, 507-531

Drangert J., J. Okotto-Okotto, L.G.O. Okotto and O. Auko (2002) 'Going Small When the City Grows Big New Options for Water Supply and Sanitation in Rapidly Expanding Urban Areas', International Water Resources Association, Water International, 27, 3, 354-363

Luthi, C., J. McConville and E. Kvarnstrom (2009) 'Community-based approaches for addressing the urban sanitation challenges', International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 1, 2, 49-63

CLTS: Analysis

Water Aid, evaluated the CLTS programme in Nigeria and they concluded that it was more effective in communities where "it was used as the only approach to promoting hygiene and sanitation and was less effective in "the more urbanized communities due to the limited sense of community and partly due to the large number of tenant occupied houses" (Water aid, 2007: iv).

It is the feelings of 'shame' and 'disgust' that drive the community and this can often be diluted amongst households or communities of different culture, religion and dialect. Additionally, the local power vacuum may be manipulated as influential decision-makers of the communities may own the vendor-business in the town and "therefore obstruct the rehabilitation of the infrastructure" or more long term improvements such as the improvement in the water supply (Drangert et al., 2002: 362).

Nevertheless, I do feel that CLTS has made significant improvements in the first-response of sanitation problems and providing immediate training and relief. As Fox (2011) states, urbanization in Africa has often taken place without economic growth. (Fox, 2011: 21) Therefore, while people may have migrated they may not have entered into the more formal labour force and cultural traditions, community loyalty will still be an imperative factor.  "Especially in the informal areas, the slums and the peri-urban fringe, the modern city can often be described as a fusion between rural and urban environments" (Luthi et al., 2009: 50).

Community led action to stop open defecation and promote the use of latrines instead of subsidies, may be the primary legacy of CLTS, but I do feel that it is these visible results that will foster community spirit and lead to a lasting change in behaviour, as subsidies and the associated politics are hurdles for community self mobilisation (Luthi et al., 2009: 58). 

Esrey et al., (1991), having studied the effects of improved sanitation on six endemic diseases in Africa such as diarrhoea and trachoma, made the following recommendations for future research.

Recommendations and Issues for future research (Esrey at al., 1991: 617)

Reference List:

Drangert J., J. Okotto-Okotto, L.G.O. Okotto and O. Auko (2002) 'Going Small When the City Grows Big New Options for Water Supply and Sanitation in Rapidly Expanding Urban Areas', International Water Resources Association, Water International, 27, 3, 354-363

Esrey, S.A., J.B. Potash, L. Roberts and C. Shiff (1991) 'Effects of improved water supply and sanitation on ascariasis, diarrhoea, dracunculiasis, hookworm infection, schistosomiasis, and trachoma', Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, 69, 5, 609-621

Fox, S. (2011) 'Understanding the Origin's and pace of Africa's Urban Transition', Crisis States Working Papers, 2, 89, 1-28

Luthi, C., J. McConville and E. Kvarnstrom (2009) 'Community-based approaches for addressing the urban sanitation challenges', International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 1, 2, 49-63

Water Aid (2007) 'Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) An Evaluation of the WaterAid’s CLTS Programme in Nigeria’, Prepared for UNICEF and Department for International Development

CLTS -Case Study: Ugep Town

CLTS was introduced to Ugep town in 2011. A town with a population of 116, 851 and with some 75 per cent of the population lacking access to sanitation, Ugep town is OD free (UNICEF, 2011:19).

Approaches used to reach ODF status in Ugep Town (UNICEF, 2011)

What becomes clear when we analyse Ugep town, is that the very drawback of a heterogenous mix of people contained in todays rapidly growing cities is what allowed sanitation facilities to improve. Different attitudes and motivations triggered change and the community reinforced this change.

Sustaining ODF in urban areas: The challenge for Ugep

Pit emptying and sludge management - In urban settings there is a lack of space, and often not enough space to build new pit latrines once existing latrines have become saturated. As a result, pits will have to be emptied and the faecal sludge transported and disposed of safely (UNICEF, 2011: 27). As household sanitation is being encouraged, water sewage facilities, primarily sewage tankers to drain the latrines are needed, which brings into question private sector investment.

Potential for Public-Private Partnerships - Private initiatives such as the Awiyawa community toilet and the Macofs public toilet demonstrate the business potential for sanitation services (UNICEF, 2011: 27). As However, what is needed further is government assistance to develop a framework where private investment can be channelled directly into community councils that are in charge of developing water and sanitation facilities under the CLTS programme.

Key lessons learned and opportunities for scaling-up (UNICEF, 2011: 27) 

Reference List:

UNICEF (2011) 'Community Led Total Sanitation in Nigeria', 1-69, Prepared for UNICEF and UK Aid

Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS)

I aim to use my blog to evaluate future options that the growing, informal urban areas of countries such as Nigeria can adopt to improve their sanitation facilities. Top-down approaches have often failed to deliver long-term solutions and I feel the age of more bottom-up, inclusive yet expansive programmes that can be sustained by the community are upon us, especially as Africa, the fastest-growing continent on Earth aims to step out the shadow of aid.

Community Led Total Sanitation is exactly such a scheme. CLTS is a growing phenomenon and has already been implemented in over 56, mainly developing countries (Galvin, 2004: 1)

"CLTS is an innovative approach for empowering communities to completely eliminate open defecation (OD). It focuses on igniting a change in collective sanitation behaviour, which is achieved through a process of collective local action stimulated by facilitators from within or outside the community" (Kar, 2012: 3)

The term 'Own-key' and 'Turn-key' were initiatives that I introduced in an earlier post of mine. CLTS would constitute an 'own-key' initiative "where activities and arrangements are controlled by local communities", and provides an alternative to the more turn-key and top-down approaches of which "the extraction of financial resources to the service provider either as fees or taxation", is its running economic model (Drangert et al., 2002: 354)

The CLTS programme in Nigeria has made huge strides in achieving its target of total elimination of open-defecation practices. From its origin in 2008, where only 15 communities were reported OD free, in March 2013, over 4690 communities were claiming to be OD free (UNICEF, 2011: 3).

However, while the CLTS has been a highlight for community led approaches, it is an approach that has been relatively focused on rural communities. CLTS activities flourished in small communities with "socially and culturally homogenous populations", with its guiding principle of empowerment encouraging communities to collaborate and plan behavioural change locally (Sigler et al., 2014: 2). Whereas, in  "Urban areas - with their more diverse and less cohesive communities, population density and land tenure issues - present several issues for the CLTS process" (UNICEF, 2011: 19).

Having introduced you to the concept of Community Led Total Sanitation, I will use my final posts to discuss the possibility of scaling up CLTS to operate in urban areas and also along the way develop my own viewpoint as to whether I feel this is an adequate solution for growing urban areas.

Reference List:

Drangert J., J. Okotto-Okotto, L.G.O. Okotto and O. Auko (2002) 'Going Small When the City Grows Big New Options for Water Supply and Sanitation in Rapidly Expanding Urban Areas', International Water Resources Association, Water International, 27, 3, 354-363

Galvin, M. (2004) 'Talking Shit: Is Community-Led Total Sanitation a radical and revolutionary approach to sanitation?’, Wiley Interdisciplinary Review: Water, 2, 1, 9-20

Kar, K. (2012) 'Why not Basics for All? Scopes and Challenges of Community‐led Total Sanitation', Institute of Development (IDS) Buletin, 43, 2, 93-96

Sigler, R., L. Mahmoudii and J. Grahami (2014) 'Analysis of behavioral change techniques in community-led total sanitation programs', Health Promotion International, 1-13

UNICEF (2011) 'Community Led Total Sanitation in Nigeria', 1-69, Prepared for UNICEF and UK Aid