Philip Otieno

I was recently in Darfur to conduct CLTS training. I had been invited by Tearfund UK in conjunction with Oxfam America. During this workshop one of the participants raised a question for which I was not able to provide an answer immediately.

The government of Sudan and INGOs are strictly discouraging cutting down of trees for any purpose so as to enable replenishing the forest cover in Darfur.

Ignition momentThere has been an interesting debate going on about the elements of shame, fear and disgust used during CLTS triggering session. The debate has been between those who believe that the element of shame as applied during a CLTS trigger is unethical as it amounts to degrading and embarrassing the community, and those who believe that the element of shame is actually positive, and that it indeed awakens the community to the realities of open defecation.

South Sudan is a country that has suffered the effects of a devastating civil war that lasted about 25 years. It is just in the last 6 years that the country has enjoyed relative peace. But even then, there are still sporadic and intermittent episodes of inter ethnic and political rivalry that many times results in loss of life and property. The prolonged civil war immensely contributed to the stifling of development in the country.

From the 27th February to the 1st March, I was attending the Pan Africa CLTS workshop in Accra Ghana. The workshop was sponsored by Plan Netherlands and was facilitated by Prof. Robert Chambers and Petra Bongartz of IDS. 8 countries namely, Ghana, Niger, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi and Zambia participated in the workshop. The workshop was generally well facilitated and provided an excellent opportunity for the countries to learn from each others experiences in their CLTS work.

Mapping in YambioOne of the challenges that I often experience when conducting trainings is the fear that CLTS is not an ideal approach for post emergency countries like South Sudan. This fear is commonly expressed by participants attending a training for the first time. Most of the time this objection is made in good faith, but it generally turns out to be a hypothetical fear, not rooted in any real life experiences in the field.

Handwashing in Mutara, MozambiqueRecently we have had a very lively debate about a number of key issues, so rather than keeping those discussions limited to emails flying back and forth between a few people, I am going to share them here.

Triggering in YambioUNICEF and Plan South Sudan are working together to roll out CLTS in South Sudan. I have been supporting them to build capacity for CLTS implementation since April 2011. So far, a total of 5 trainings has been conducted in 5 states, namely Central Equatoria, Jonglei, Upper Nile, Western Equatorial and Western Bhar El Gazel. The trainings have targeted Plan and UNICEF staff and their partners, such as the line ministries and the national NGOs being supported by UNICEF.