Africa Health : Community-Led Total Sanitation

[Photo credit: Sustainable sanitation under ]

There are several new publications by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) which look like they could be of interest to African NGOs.

Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is a new approach to the problem of open defecation which blights many communities with limited sanitary facilities. It recognises that just providing toilets or encouraging individual household toilet construction is not enough. It focusses on behaviour change through community ownership and leadership. Although pioneered in Bangladesh the principles are very applicable to Africa too. It uses the participatory methods of intense community mobilisation to enable local people to analyse their own situation and use collective decision-making to bring about change.

Water Aid has produced an animation film which explains the 10 step process to Total Sanitation.

Facilitating `Hands On Training’ Workshops for Community-Led Total Sanitation: A Trainers’ Training Guide
Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is spreading fast in many countries in different regions, and there is growing demand for facilitators and trainers of facilitators. This guide, produced by WSSCC and the CLTS Foundation, and authored by the distinguished Kamal Kar, fulfills the need for a resource that will support the creation of a strong cadre of trainers for front-line CLTS work. 40 pages.

Download a PDF of the publication Facilitating Hands on Training Workshops for Community-led Total Sanitation

Hygiene and Sanitation Software: An Overview of Approaches
Since the 1970s, sanitation and hygiene professionals have strived to find ways to engage target groups (individuals, households, communities, institutions or even organisations) in development programmes that facilitate sanitation and hygiene behaviour change, or create a demand for related services. These are `software’ methods or approaches, as opposed to `hardware’ such as toilets and pipes. This new resource presents in one place the latest thinking and most common software approaches for improving the political, legal, institutional, financial and economic, educational, technical and social conditions within which hygiene and sanitation programmes operate. 144 pages.

Download a PDF of the publication Hygiene and Sanitation Software

WSSCC 2009 Annual Report
The annual report describes the many ways in which the members, coalitions and Geneva-based secretariat of WSSCC worked in 2009 in pursuit of sanitation, hygiene and water supply for all people around the world. 32 Pages.

Download a PDF of the WSSCC 2009 Annual Report in English, French or Spanish

Suggested Books (US)

• (Bi-Monthly Magazine)

Handbook on community-led total sanitation Free resource: Handbook on community-led total sanitation Senegal Health : Total End of FGC Now in Sight Africa Nigeria : WSSCC Calls for Expressions of Interest to be the Global Sanitation Fund Executing Agent or Country Programme Monitor Malawi: Water and Sanitation