WASHPaLS Global Call for Data and Research Collaboration

Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) represents a revolution in the fight to end open defecation, with large-scale programs in place and embedded in national policy in dozens of countries. In their Handbook on Community-Led Total Sanitation, Kar and Chambers (2008) identified an array of variables thought to make program success more or less likely. Among these “favorability” factors are small community size, remoteness, social and cultural homogeneity, the presence of young and progressive local leadership, the absence of prior sanitation hardware subsidies, elevated enteric disease, and favorable soil conditions. More generally, practitioners and researchers agree that the ability of CLTS to bring about significant reductions in open defecation is a function of factors related to the community itself, the quality of program implementation, and the broader operating environment.