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Subsidy or self-respect? Participatory total community sanitation in Bangladesh

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Authors: 
Kar, Kamal
2003

Abstract

This working paper details a new community-led approach to sanitation in Bangladesh. Access to latrines in rural areas is less than 15 per cent. Despite many agencies having been involved in the provision of subsidised latrines and toilets over the last three decades very few villages are totally sanitised. This new approach concentrates on empowering local people to analyse the extent and risk of environmental pollution caused by open defecation, and to construct toilets without any external subsidies. The Paper details the background to the work, the process of participatory total community sanitation, the impact of the project, it's national and international spread, how it differs from other sanitation programmes and limits to the approach. Finally it provides a list of recommendations, which have implications for policy makers and require institutional change. This project has had a huge impact: open defecation had been stopped in over 400 villages in Bangladesh and the methodology is being adopted in parts of India and elsewhere in Asia and Africa.

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Handbook on community-led total sanitation

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Authors: 
Kamal Kar
Robert Chambers
2008

Abstract

The basic principle of Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is the empowerment of local communities to do their own analysis and take their own action to become open defecation free.

This handbook has been compiled as a source of ideas and experiences that can be used for CLTS orientation workshops, advocacy to stakeholders, training facilitators and natural leaders and implementing CLTS activities. It is a resource book especially for field staff, facilitators and trainers for planning, implementation and follow-up for CLTS.

Users of this handbook must feel free to use its guidelines in the way they find best. The methods described are not the only ones for implementing CLTS. Users are encouraged to explore different ways of preparing for CLTS, for triggering, for post-triggering follow-up, and for supporting and spreading CLTS that fit with local conditions, cultures and opportunities.

Facilitators must feel free to be inventive and adaptive, and to use their best judgment in deciding what to do. The ideas and advice that follow have been tried and tested, but it is for facilitators themselves to decide what works for them.

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