Resources: scaling up

On the 7th December 2011, the Government of Malawi (GoM) through the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and key line ministries in collaboration with development partners, NGOs, private sector, communities and key sector players, officially launched the ODF Malawi Strategy (2012-2015).

Read more about the strategy

Read a Press Release in The Nation 6th December 2011

In September 2011, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded Plan International USA a four-year $7 million dollar learning and implementation grant to determine how to best introduce Community-Led Total Sanitation solutions in developing countries. Research and testing will be conducted on new and specifically designed projects in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Ghana and will examine the CLTS approach, ultimately aiming to uncover ways to make it more scalable and cost-effective.

In 2007 Plan International Indonesia (Plan Indonesia) adopted Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) as its only approach for implementing sanitation projects in its 9 Program Unit sites. This paper outlines the process being undertaken to take CLTS to scale, the key factors that have enabled it and the lessons learned so far.

In 2006, WSP partnered with the Government of Ethiopia, the Amhara Regional Health Bureau, and USAID’s Hygiene Improvement Project (HIP) to launch the Learning by Doing Initiative in Amhara Regional State, focused on achieving total behavior change in sanitation and hygiene. The project started at scale, reaching an initial 93,000 households in four districts (estimated population of 418,000) and then expanded further to include an additional 90 districts. Overall, 5.8 million people were reached and 2.8 million more people stopped practicing open defecation and now use an open pit latrine. Key strategies discussed included building capacity at the community level and developing and testing tools and training manuals.

After two short years of CLTS in Mauritania, 8% of the country’s villages have become ODF. This in itself convinced the government that the strategy of choice to use for rural sanitation was CLTS. This is clearly stated in the following national policy and strategy documents.

Trip report by Kamal Kar based on his visit between the 19th and 26th June 2011 which included a review of the practice of CLTS in Vietnam, consultation with the main actors of sanitation in the country and a two day workshop to discuss and plan ways forward for scaling up of CLTS in Vietnam.

A note by Samuel Musyoki and Robert Chambers on experiences of what works when going to scale with CLTS.

Note by WaterAid Nigeria on the benefits of and strategies for engaging Natural Leaders in CLTS. (2011)

Read the note

Article in Governance Now, 30th June 2011. On the occasion of the launch of the book Shit Matters, Brajesh Kumar argues that it’s time for India to abandon costly and ineffective sanitation programmes and give CLTS a serious try.

During his visit to Kenya in April/May 2011, Kamal Kar met with SNV to discuss the challenges and opportunities of up-scaling CLTS in Kenya

Kamal Kar’s Trainers’ Training Guide on Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), published by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC).

by Sameer Shah (formerly Plan UK, now Health Unlimited) and Amsalu Negussie, Plan RESA (Regional Office of East and Southern Africa)

Paper presented at the Water and Sanitation in International Development and Disaster Relief (WSIDDR) International Workshop Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, 28–30 May 2008.