Reaching the poor and vulnerable community in Rural Afghanistan through CLTS

Reaching the poor and vulnerable community in Rural Afghanistan through CLTS Adane Bekele, WASH Specialist, UNICEF-Afghanistan Dhaka, Bangladesh, 31 January -2 February 2012 ASIA REGIONAL SANITATION AND HYGIENE PRACTITIONERS WORKSHOP

Background• The population of Afghanistan estimated on the basis of the National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (2007-08) is close to 25 million people.• The Afghan population is overwhelmingly rural: 74% (around 18.5 million people) lives in rural areas and only 20 % (5.0 million) in urban areas, while 6% (1.5 million) is classified as nomadic Kuchi. The total number of households in Afghanistan is estimated at around 3.4 million.• The sanitation indicator shows disparities: only 24% of household members in rural areas use an improved sanitation facility, while in urban areas 51% use an improved facility. Overall, 29% of household members use an improved sanitation facility.• In rural Afghanistan, sanitation coverage is low: half of rural Afghans use unimproved toilets and 20% have no toilets at all. Behind these national averages are stark disparities: between rich and poor, but also between regions in the country.• In the central Highland region, where this project took place, half of the residents have no choice but to defecate in open fields or sahrahis.• Half million Afghans in this region live without access to an improved toilet, this makes the region experiencing the worst sanitation deficit in the country almost 15 times larger than the proportion in the North.• Due to decades of conflict, Afghanistan’s social, financial and physical infrastructure has been damaged and the rate of rural poverty, illiteracy, and infant mortality has gone up.• Under 5 mortality and maternal mortality rates of Afghanistan are now among the highest in the world

Situation 2011 –MICS Result

History of CLTS in Afghanistan• The concept of triggering a community into becoming open defecation free (ODF) by building or improving their own latrines was first introduced to Afghanistan at the Water and Sanitation Group meeting in May 2007.• At that time the concept was not well received as the viewpoint of most participants was that this type of initiative would fail without subsidies and assistance.• Later, the Society for Sustainable Development of Afghanistan (SSDA), an indigenous, non-political NGO, initiated the community-led total sanitation approach (CLTS) in October 2009 with support from Tetra Tech ARD Inc., under the USAID-supported Sustainable Water Supply and Sanitation (SWSS) Project.• The SSDA also trained more than 100 master trainers working in all 34 Provinces of Afghanistan in 2010 under the financial support of UNICEF.• The National Rural WASH Policy 2010 has proposed community-led total sanitation (CLTS) as an approach to target 20% of the population in those areas where open defecation is practiced.• The CLTS approach has been implemented in many provinces by many national and international NGOs since 2010.• Up to date more than 374 communities are free from open defecation though out Afghanistan

CLTS as a tool to reach the poor and vulnerable community in central highland• The central highland of Afghanistan consists of Bamyan and Daikundi provinces with a total population of 794,400 of which only 20.4% have access to improved sanitation facilities• Half the population practices open defecation.• The two provinces are characterized by high poverty levels with low coverage of basic services and challenging road accessibility due to mountainous topography• From the beginning of 2010, community-led total sanitation (CLTS) has been implemented in Daikundi province of the Central Highland.• The project was considered as a pilot to implement the WASH policy which endorsed CLTS as approach providing no subsidy for construction of household latrines, which are commonly provided in the country .Objectives and steps of CLTS project• Assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of the communities living in 23 villages of two districts of Daikundy Province in the field of health, hygiene and sanitation through conducting a baseline survey.• Implement, supervise and monitor the CLTS approach in the target communities of two districts• Support and encourage the communities in changing their behaviour in health, hygiene and sanitation practices both at domestic and village level.• Make the target communities open defecation free (ODF); declare and certify clean ODF villages at the end of the project.• Re-assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices of the project communities in terms of health, hygiene and sanitation through conducting end-line survey.

Progress of CLTS in Daikundi Province: Experience to address the poor• Daikundi province is home to 2.1% of the total population of Afghanistan, the population is distributed among the nine districts.• The large majority of the population 99.5% lives in the rural area.• 23 villages with a total of 801 households were selected for the CLTS project in the two districts (14 villages from the four community development councils (CDCs) of Khedir district and nine villages from four CDCs of Miramoor district)Achievements• Formation of hygiene committee at each village : Most Hygiene Committee members were self-selected, joining on a voluntary basis.• Triggering villagers for sanitation : During the meeting, facilitators triggered the villagers through applying Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools, in general, developing these activities: – Introduction, strengthening rapport, and launching the triggering session – Social Mapping / Defecation Mapping – Facilitating mapping to be focused, fast and fun – Transect Walk or “Walk of Shame” – Some important question to be asked during this walk – Calculation of Feces – Flow Diagram – Triggering Stage / Ignition Point – Calculation of Medical Expenses – Glass Exercise – Water Quality Test• Continuous follow up by SSAD staff and Regular Supportive supervision

Cont…Good news for the ODF of a village: Based onthe following observations made by the SSDAteam and UNICEF, all these 23 villages of fourCDCs were ODF by June ,2011.Toap is a village of Khoshkab CDC in Khideer district with 21households. At the beginning of the project, this village had onlyeight latrines, all of which were unsafe. Human excreta/faececould be seen everywhere in the village. Now the village hasbecome open defecation free. All households have constructedlatrines. However, only one family has not constructed the latrinedue the lack of land. However, this family has been utilizing thelatrines of the neighboring families

• Conclusion With so many alternative approaches to sanitation and hygiene promotion it may be difficult to select the most appropriate approach. The decision about an approach to be used should be based on the local context and situation. .• In rural Afghanistan, sanitation coverage is low: half of rural Afghans use unimproved toilets and 20% have no toilets at all. Behind these national averages are stark disparities: between rich and poor, but also between regions in the country.• Half of residents of the central Highland region have no choice but to defecate in open fields or sahrahis. Half million Afghans in this region live without access to an improved toilet. The Highland region has among the lowest coverage in the country, and has about 40% fewer improved latrines than the north, for example.• The implementation of CLTS at 23 villages of Daikundi province, engaged everyone in a community in problem diagnosis, and in developing appropriate solutions for the problems they identified.• This led to strong community mobilization and in improved sanitation behavior which ended open defecation practices without any hardware subsidy.• The poor people in 23 villages who had not used sanitation facilities previously have now constructed and started to use their own household latrines.• This indicates the effectiveness of the CLTS approach to address sanitation problems among poor and vulnerable rural communities of Afghanistan. Up to now, more than 374 villages have become ODF in different parts of Afghanistan. A national review workshop on the progress of CLTS in Afghanistan conducted on July 23, 2011 also confirmed the application CLTS as one of the approach to address poor and vulnerable communities in rural Afghanistan Tashakur

Reaching the poor and vulnerable community in Rural Afghanistan through CLTS

by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre on May 10, 2012

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Reaching the poor and vulnerable community in Rural Afghanistan through CLTS — Presentation Transcript

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