Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is an innovative methodology for mobilising communities to completely eliminate open defecation (OD).
Communities are facilitated to conduct their own appraisal and analysis of open defecation (OD) and take their own action to become ODF (open defecation free). CLTS was pioneered by Kamal Kar (a development consultant from India) together with VERC (Village Education Resource Centre), a partner of WaterAid Bangladesh, in 2000 in Mosmoil, a village in the Rajshahi district of Bangladesh, whilst evaluating a traditionally subsidised sanitation programme. Kar, who had years of experience in participatory approaches in a range of development projects, succeeded in persuading the local NGO to stop top-down toilet construction through subsidy.
Highlights of the February newsletter from the organisation:
- Vigilance by young girls and women: The Gandhian way of persuasion, One pager by Anupma Verma, Knowledge Links, India
- Adaptation of CLTS to a school setting in Azad Jammu and Kashmir state in Pakistan
- Triggering CLTS in schools in India