CLTS: Challenges and opportunities

Briefing
  • Published 26/10/10

Access to sanitation is vital to people’s health and well-being, particularly women. In the past, sanitation has been provided through top-down, supply-oriented approaches. Now, Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) offers another way, by focusing on behaviour change and local people’s needs. This could provoke policy-makers to change their approach to sanitation. However, CLTS also faces its own challenges. At a local level, it needs to be sustainable and take into account cultural sensitivities. And if the approach is “scaled up”, a balance needs to be struck between the community-based approach of CLTS, and government structures.

This briefing accompanies the Working Paper The Dynamics and Sustainability of Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS): Mapping Challenges and Pathways.