Plan Niger is one of several NGOs working with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and government health workers on community-led total sanitation (CLTS). A project there is showing people from scores of villages the dangers of open defecation.
Published on: 11/03/2011
Plan Niger is one of several NGOs working with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and government health workers on community-led total sanitation (CLTS). Niger is one of the latest countries in West Africa where the approach is being used, according to Jane Bevan, water, sanitation and hygiene specialist with UNICEF’s West and Central Africa regional office. In rural Niger only 2 per cent of the population has adequate sanitation. A project there is showing people from scores of villages the dangers of open defecation.
Experts note that it is difficult to measure precisely the impact of having toilets. “It is difficult to have a causal link – to say that the toilet has improved health,” Bevan said. “Diarrhoea can have a number of various causes. But I think it’s clear that 100 per cent elimination of open defecation will be markedly better for communities’ health than 80 per cent, which earlier had been accepted as a goal.”
UNICEF and partners at the Poverty and Economic Policy Research Network are undertaking a study of CLTS in Mali funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The study is aimed at measuring the health and socio-economic benefits of the approach over a period of years, Bevan said. “The study will compare indicators of well-being in two districts – one where CLTS is beginning this year, and another where it will start next year.”
Source:IRIN, 23 Feb 2011
