Community led total sanitation approach : some personal field experiences from Bangladesh

Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is a participatory approach to hygiene. Developed in Bangladesh in late 2000. It has inspired people to carry out their own appraisals and ensure total sanitation of the community. The approach has successfully engaged all sorts of people, including children, to work collectively for total sanitation. The early success and rapid spread of CLTS has occurred without much
research into its processes. The most significant outcomes of CLTS are: people can buy cheap latrines, which means they can install them immediately using their own resources; Government Organization (GO)- Non- Government Organization (NGO) coordination has brought momentum to the issue. There has been mutual support for installing latrines at community level. Spontaneous leaders have emerged as part of the process to mobilize the people; Rural Sanitation Engineers have developed among the community; they provide technical support on the installation of latrines; use of safe water has increased significantly though water remains scarce in some areas during the dry season and floods. Community initiatives and outside support have significantly reduced open defecation, despite a lack of subsidy for domestic latrines. However, some people still practise open defecation. This is mostly because they did not repair latrines after they collapsed, or failed for a long time to share other latrines. [authors abstract]