www.communityledtotalsanitation.org

This project supports the acceleration, spread and quality enhancement of community-led total sanitation, enabling rural people to take action to end open defecation and  improve the health and wellbeing of all, especially of those children, women and men who live in poverty.

Our work comprises of three main types of activities:  networking and dissemination; workshops for sharing, reflection, learning and planning; and expanding and improving the CLTS website. The IDS project on CLTS acts as a global hub for CLTS, at the same time encouraging and supporting regional, country and organizational initiatives which evolve independently and which may in the future take over.

Networking and dissemination activities

This involves actively engaging with the network of CLTS practitioners around the world and keeping in touch and up-to-date with developments.  We engage continuously with the growing number of contacts through a bimonthly newsletter and individual communications. We aim to link practitioners and policy-makers internationally, pro-actively supporting the international South-South exchange of experience and of good trainers. We seek to collect, review, learn from, synthesize and spread experience gained with practical approaches and policies in diverse conditions, organizations, and countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere.

Workshops for sharing, reflection, learning and planning

We convene and co-convene regional and other workshops of practitioners, policy-makers and donors to share experience and insights, to brainstorm and to plan, focusing on practical and policy lessons learnt concerning taking CLTS to scale with quality.  We provide opportunities for practitioners to share methods and lessons, to reflect, learn and write, and disseminate the outputs.  Workshops usually exploit the opportunities provided by international conferences when people are coming together anyway.

CLTS website  www.communityledtotalsanitation.org

The CLTS website aims to be the global hub for CLTS, connecting the network of practitioners, communities, NGOs, agencies, researchers, governments, donors and others involved or interested in CLTS. The site contains practical information about the approach, information on CLTS in different countries, research papers, relevant news and events and many other useful materials. It intends to serve as an up-to-date virtual resource centre and is a space for sharing and learning on CLTS across organisations, countries and sectors. The site reflects the rich, varied and dynamic nature of the approach and hopes to encourage debate around key aspects of CLTS in order to improve policy and practice.