Resources: Africa

Inspiring case study of Mohamed Yahya, who has not let physical limitations get in the way of his enthusiasm, commitment and dedication to become a fulltime CLTS facilitator and contribute to the wellbeing of the communities in the Adrar region of Mauritania.
Read about the CLTS facilitator like no other

Case study from Chitipa District Council on the effectiveness of Natural Leaders and how they can best be utilised for CLTS success. This study presents suggestions for potential changes which can be made regarding support to Natural Leaders so that they can work at scale in Malawi.
By Karina Redick, Junior Fellow 2011, Malawi Water and Sanitation Team, EWB Canada

The recently launched strategy for creating an ODF Malawi by 2015 is giving a boost to CLTS activities in communities where open defecation used to be the order of the day.

Thanks to CLTS the sanitation landscape and people’s lives, are changing in Homa Bay.

The Cooperative Housing Foundation (CHF-International), supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), just held an eight-day workshop on CLTS in Gbarnga, Bong County, Liberia with over thirty participants in attendance. The workshop was intended to train County Level Facilitators (CLF) and Natural Leaders (NL) under its CLTS Project.
Speaking at the end of the workshop, the participants vowed to be true ambassadors of CHF-International and its partners under the Community Led Total Sanitation Initiative (CLTS) by sensitizing residents of Bong County, how to control open defecation.

The United Kingdom will invest 19 million pounds for a period of four years to help improve sanitation and hygiene which will benefit three million people in rural areas in Zambia. The Department for International Development (DFID) will channel the funds through the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to implement a variety of activities to improve sanitation and hygiene in rural areas. Rural sanitation coverage in Zambia was estimated to be only 43 percent in 2008 and water coverage 46 percent. Twenty-six percent of the rural population, nearly 2.2 million people have no sanitation facilities at all.In pilot Community Led Total Sanitation projects in Zambia, sanitation coverage increased from 38 percent to 93 percent over a 12-month period across 517 villages. Over 14,500 toilets were constructed by households and approximately 90, 000 people gained access to sanitation in less than a year.

Read Philip Vincent Otieno’s account of the World Toilet Day celebrations in Siaya county, which included songs, dance, drama, comedy and poems to raise awareness of the dangers of open defecation.

During activities held by Plan Malawi to mark World Toilet Day on the 19th November, Mulanje District Environmental Health Officer Bosco Kalua revealed that 35 percent of households in Mulanje have no toilets, posing a huge sanitation risk. Commemoration of World Toilet Day was in line with Plan Malawi’s CLTS project and the event was held under the theme, “Take part in development of your community-One household-One toilet”.

New CLTS newsletter produced by the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, supported by Plan Kenya, SNV, WSP and the CLTS Foundation. Includes interviews, news and articles relating to CLTS in Kenya.
You can subscribe to the newsletter directly via the CLTS Kenya website

At the opening ceremony of the third national roundtable conference on CLTS in Katsina State, Nigeria, UNICEF’s Chief of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, Vinod Alkari, said that Nigeria loses N455 billion annually or 1.3 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) due to poor sanitation. Furthermore, he stated that 33 million people defecate in the open while only a third of the country’s population have access to improved sanitation, resulting in high morbidity and mortality in Nigeria.

The story of Katharine Omachie, a member of the Village Health Team in the Katipe community, in Tororo, Uganda, who is engaged in CLTS with children and has already triggered three primary schools through the approach.