This paper provides insights from initiatives that include transgender people in sanitation programming in South Asia. Three case studies of recent actions to make sanitation inclusive for transgender people (in India and Nepal) are presented, accompanied by reflections and recommendations to guide future practice.
Practitioners are recommended to:
Over the past two decades Bangladesh has achieved significant successes around national sanitation coverage, through increased latrine access and sanitation education campaigns, which has resulted in a large part of the country’s population shifting away from open defecation to using household concrete-lined pit latrines.
This article looks at the response of USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) to the current water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) crisis affecting over four million people, both those internally displaced within South Sudan and refugees populations who have fled to neighbouring countries. It looks at how collaborative WASH projects are uniting communities as well as improving health and safety.
Busia County is the only County in Kenya which is Open Defecation Free, having attained this status in 2015. Their journey to Open Defecation Free started with Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) in July 2010. During CLTS triggering, the community together Public Health Officers, Community Health Volunteers (CHVs), Community Health Extension Workers (CHEWs) and Natural Leaders addressed the importance of building a latrine. All efforts were then directed to ensure that people build and used toilets.
The dwellers of Bullay Bala, a small village in Chakwal district, are committed to eliminate the culture of open defecation. Abida Bibi, 50, mother of two daughters and a son, has proven to be a role-model and exemplar within her village.
Read more in this case study from Plan Pakistan
Plan International Pakistan, under the umbrella of DFID funded South Asia WASH Results Program, is supporting the Government of Punjab, in their initiative to achieve Open Defecation Free (ODF) Punjab, by 2018 1 along with providing entrepreneurial prospects to 29 women and 246 men to promote sanitation. The project has reached 894,524 beneficiaries in 9 districts with the message to improve their sanitation and hygiene practices.
Habib Hassan was an ordinary, 38 year old entrepreneur who owned a small hardware store in Chak no 148-A TDA U/C Thal Jhandi, Layyah. Now, he also runs a successful sanitation mart along with his hardware store, which provides latrine construction material for as low as PKR 3,250 (US$32.5) only, to the community members.
Read more about Habib in this case study from Plan International Pakistan.
CATS is UNICEF’s core strategy to eliminate open defecation, in line with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.2: to ‘achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations’.4 CATS has scaled up rapidly since its 2008 inception, with implementation in over 60 countries: approximately 48 million people now live in open defecation free communities that previously did not.5 With these achievements come even greater challenges.
ADRA Denmark bases its humanitarian interventions on a strategy that links relief with rehabilitation and development (LRRD). This strategy is shared with its partner ADRA Sudan, and the introduction of Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is an example of LRRD from Sudan.
This case study explores IFRC’s innovation process in developing and testing a comprehensive relief item to meet more effectively and appropriately the menstrual hygiene needs of women and girls in emergencies.
