Sanitation remains one of the biggest development challenges of our time, and a long neglected issue associated with taboos and stigma. Despite growing attention and efforts, many top-down approaches to sanitation have failed, reflecting that simply providing people with a toilet does not necessarily guarantee its use. The Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach offers a more promising alternative, focusing on facilitating a profound change in people's behaviour through participatory techniques.
By raising local people's awareness of the linkages between open defecation and disease through the release of powerful emotions such as disgust and shame, they are encouraged to analyse their own sanitation situation and take action themselves. The approach has proved immensely successful, being implemented in more than 20 countries, and has a big potential in terms of achieving several Millennium Development Goals. However, like any development success story challenges still remain regarding scaling up with quality, inclusion of the poorest and sustainability and there is a danger that accounts of success may be exaggerated.
Shit Matters addresses both the potential and challenges of CLTS by drawing on research in Bangladesh, India and Indonesia as well as experiences from Africa.
Prelims (Foreword - Kamal Kar)
1. Introduction; Lyla Mehta and Synne Movik
2. Shit Matters: Community-Led Total Sanitation and the Sanitation Challenge for the 21st Century; Lyla Mehta; BANGLADESH
3. Community-Led Total Sanitation in Bangladesh: Chronicles of a people's movement; Shafiul Azam Ahmed
4. Exploring the social dynamics of CLTS in Bangladesh: The inclusion of children, women and vulnerable people; Amina Mahbub
5. NGOs and the implementation of CLTS in Bangladesh: Selected case studies; Mick Howes, Enamul Huda and Abu Naser
6. The challenges of facilitating CLTS; Anowarul Haq and Brigitta Bode; INDIA
7. The CLTS Story in India: The Sanitation Story of the Millennium; Deepak Sanan
8. Institutional Arrangements and Social Norms Influencing Sanitation Behaviour in Rural India; A. Dyalchand, M. Khale, S. Vasudevan, and N. Kale
9. The Impact of Rural Sanitation on Water Quality and Waterborne Diseases; Manisha Khale and Ashok Dyalchand
10. Doing CLTS in a Countrywide Program Context in India: Public Good, Private Good? Nisheeth Kumar and J.P.Shukla; INDONESIA
11. The CLTS Story in Indonesia: Empowering communities, transforming institutions, furthering decentralization; Nilanjana Mukherjee and Nina Shatifan
12. CLTS - Learning from communities in Indonesia; Owin Jamasy and Nina Shatifan
13. Institutional dimensions of scaling up in Indonesia; Edy Priyono; SYNTHESIS
14. CLTS in India and Indonesia: Institutions, Incentives and Politics; Anu Joshi
15. CLTS, Dynamics and Sustainability: Perspectives on Challenges and Pathways; Synne Movik
16. Reaching Out, Scaling Up: The Future of CLTS; Robert Chambers and Kamal Kar
Back Matter (APPENDIX: Notes on resources, conference material, networks, partnerships, etc)
Lyla Mehta is a sociologist working on water and sanitation. She is a Research Fellow in the Environment Team at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex and a Professor at the Institute of International Environment and Development, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Aas.
Synne Movik is an independent consultant in the field of water natural and resources, who has been working with the Institute of Development Studies and the STEPS Centre, at the University of Sussex, UK.