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Practice

Community-Led Total Sanitation

Also Known As CLTS
Sanitation Practice

A rural sanitation approach developed by Kamal Kar around 2000 in Bangladesh that works without hardware subsidies, instead facilitating communities to recognize and confront the practice of open defecation for themselves so that abandoning it becomes a spontaneous, community-driven decision. It marked a deliberate break from earlier subsidized-latrine programs, and its long-term effectiveness is actively debated. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Origin Year
2000 1
Practice Class
Hygiene and sanitation, behavior change 1
Classification
Practice Class
Preventive or Public Health Practice 1
Connections

Developed By

Kamal Kar, Figures

Kamal Kar originated the Community-Led Total Sanitation approach in Bangladesh in 2000.

Source Wikipedia: Community-led Total Sanitation

In Branch

Source Wikipedia: Community-led Total Sanitation

Open Questions

Sources
1. Wikipedia: Community-led Total Sanitation
Wikipedia
  • Introduction section
    CLTS takes an approach to rural sanitation that works without hardware subsidies by facilitating communities to acknowledge the problem
  • Program classification, entity description sentence
    A rural sanitation approach developed by Kamal Kar around 2000 in Bangladesh that works without hardware subsidies, instead facilitating communities to recognize and confront the practice of open defecation for themselves so that abandoning it becomes a spontaneous, community-driven decision.
  • In Branch: Hygiene and Sanitation
  • Open Questions: Does Community-Led Total Sanitation produce durable behavior change, or does open-defecation-free status commonly slip?
  • Developed By: Kamal Kar, Origins section
    The concept was developed around 2000 by Kamal Kar for rural areas in Bangladesh.
View the Source
Open Questions (1 open question)
Does Community-Led Total Sanitation produce durable behavior change, or does open-defecation-free status commonly slip?

A systematic review of 200 studies concluded the evidence base on CLTS effectiveness is still weak, with little monitoring or evaluation of impacts despite large international funders backing the approach. A 2013 study of 116 African villages declared open defecation free after CLTS found that, using broader criteria, an overall slippage rate of 92 percent had occurred, and a 2018 study found little evidence for sustained sanitation behavior change as a result of CLTS.

What would resolve this Long-term, controlled follow-up studies tracking latrine use, sustained open-defecation-free status and health outcomes several years after a community's CLTS trigger event, rather than short-term post-triggering counts alone.
Public health and development economics, through long-term randomized or controlled evaluation.Wikipedia: Community-led Total Sanitation
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