Shit Matters: The potential of community-led total sanitation - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853396923 ISBN 13: 9781853396922

Publisher: Practical Action Publishing, 2011

Synopsis

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 behavior 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 analyze 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. This book addresses both the potential and challenges of CLTS by drawing on research in Bangladesh, India and Indonesia as well as experiences from Africa.

With chapters by leading scholars and practitioners in sanitation policy and practice as well as critical reflections from key players in CLTS, Shit Matters offers important insights into the workings of CLTS on the ground, covering critical aspects of the social, ecological, technological, financial and institutional dynamics surrounding CLTS. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in development, health, public policy and sanitation issues.

About this title

About the Author:

Lyla Mehta is a sociologist working on water and sanitation. She is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex and a Professor II at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences.
Synne Movik is a post-doctoral fellow in Global Environmental Governance at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences. She was previously an independent consultant in the field of water resources, working on water and sanitation issues with the Institute of Development Studies and the STEPS Centre at the University of Sussex, UK.

Review:

"Shit Matters: The Potential of Community-Led Total Sanitation covers the CLTS sanitation program which originated in rural Bangladesh in 2000 and which offers a focus on change through participatory techniques. It uses the Bangladesh research and experiences throughout Asia and Africa to cover changes in sanitation policy and practice, provides articles by leading scholars and practitioners, and assesses lessons in sanitation policy and field applications. College-level collections strong in sociology, sanitation, and health will all find this a fine collection documenting successes and issues involving poverty and sustainability." (California Bookwatch 2012-01-01)

"A 'must read' for anyone who believes that a world in which over one billion people defecate in the open is a world not fit to live in." (Sanjay Wijesekera, Team Leader, Water and Sanitation)

"Truly a vast oak tree has grown from a very small acorn. And Shit Matters tells the story extremely well." (Peregrin Swann, WHO Senior Advisor)

About this edition

• Publisher: Practical Action Publishing
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1853396923
• ISBN 13: 9781853396922
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 280
• Editor: Mehta Lyla, Movik Synne