Solutions Panorama

Combating Open Defecation
with Community-Led Total
Sanitation
Where:
Global
Time Frame:
2000 - Present
DESCRIPTION
Community-Led Total Sanitation is a relatively low cost
solution to increase girls’ and women’s access to sanitation
facilities. Access to sanitation facilities improves the health of
communities by reducing diarrhea and other consequences of
open defecation.
In an effort to ensure real and sustainable change, Community-
Led Total Sanitation focuses on the creation of open defecation
free villages. By raising awareness that an entire community
is at risk of disease as long as even a minority of community
members continues to defecate in the open, the Community-Led
Total Sanitation approach triggers the community’s desire for
collective change.
Building on other participatory mobilization methods,
community members are led through a series of activities,
including a community mapping of defecation sites, and come
away with the knowledge that they are ingesting each other’s
feces. This realization is channeled into a commitment to
become an open defecation free community. Open defecation
free status is first verified and later certified by an official
committee. Often there are two or three stages of open
defecation free certification, first focusing on the use of any
quality latrine and some sort of handwashing station; additional
stages deal with quality and other ‘plusses,’ including girlfriendly,
inclusive sanitation.
IMPACT
Communities and districts achieve open defecation free status
and see improvements in health. Communities see the results
of their commitment and action, and the level of community
self-efficacy grows. Often the linkages with local government
and local private sector have spill over benefits, as well.
LEARN MORE
The Power of Cross-Sector Collaboration on WASH;
washplus.org
“The United Nations World Water Development Report 2015:
Water For A Sustainable World,”
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO)
“Effect of a community-led sanitation intervention on child
diarrhoea and child growth in rural Mali: a cluster-randomised
controlled trial,”
Amy J Pickering, et al.
Submitted by FHI 360
Community-Led Total
Sanitation is a relatively low
cost solution to increase
girls’ and women’s access
to sanitation facilities.
WOMEN DELIVER 2016 CONFERENCE: SOLUTIONS PANORAMA 90