Further details on CLTS in Cambodia

Challenges:

Ensuring sustainability of latrines: Building latrines from locally available, low-cost materials (broken jars, the base of palm tree leaves etc.) means that many of these are temporary structures, built without properly lined pits. The challenge lies in ensuring technical assistance and access to durable sanitation hardware to those communities willing to improve their structures, whilst maintaining their initiative and ownership. Linking 100% open defecation free (ODF) communities in remote rural areas with urban markets, suppliers and vendors to give them access to a wide range of sanitary hardware, will be a further challenge.

Latrine design vs behaviour change: Concerns were raised regarding the design of the simple low-cost pit latrines, used by most of the families in the villages, as they are not water seal latrines and thus do not meet MRD national standards. However, the priority of CLTS is to trigger the behavioral changes required to stop open defecation, using locally available low cost materials to construct simple toilets. Once the age old practice of open defecation is changed, the rest of the process flows easily and happens quickly: people start to improve the toilet structure and design and hardly anyone ever continues to use the simple and low-cost toilet constructed at the onset of triggering CLTS.

Spread and Extension of CLTS: Spread and scaling up of CLTS requires intensive expert facilitation. Thus, training activities for community leaders, front line staff of government departments, NGOs, INGOs and interested members of the Commune Councils are needed. This training is not only useful for strengthening their capacity in working with communities but also serves as a motivational tool to reward them for the time and energy they volunteer.

Successes
• Initial success of Concern Cambodia’s CLTS programme in Pursat, Kampung Cham and Siem Reap has drawn the attention of many agencies including the MRD and UNICEF
• Early CLTS villages served as training and learning grounds and a live demonstration of what could be accomplished by communities.
• Natural Leaders from these early CLTS villages visited other villages and helped them to also attain ODF status.

Lessons Learned/ Recommendations
• Communities are willing and able to build their own latrines without any subsidy but this requires good facilitation and intensive encouragement, for example inviting them to present their experiences in workshops.
• PDRD (Provincial Rural Development Committee) staff are capable and willing to serve as CLTS focal points if they are given appropriate training. Additional training on how to communicate effectively, how to facilitate community meetings and on health education methodology would be useful.
• More community leaders and community consultants are required for larger villages. Village chiefs and commune representatives need to be provided with training on technical and facilitation skills. This ensures that each community leader is assigned a role that is within his/her capacity.
• National level workshops on CLTS need to be organized for exposing interested agencies in Cambodia to community led processes. The more people see CLTS in real life and interact with the communities involved, the more they understand its dynamics.
• More motivational activities such as participatory hygiene promotion, sanitation campaigns, involvement of children and religious leaders need to be included.

Plans
• Plan and UNICEF are collaborating in the training of Provincial Department of Rural Development (PDRD) staff (as well as Plan Cambodia staff) in order to carry out CLTS in Kampung Cham and Siem Reap provinces (Plan Cambodia target areas). UNICEF is supporting PDRD to do the same in six other provinces. So far, about six pilots are under way, and a first-stage scale-up of CLTS is now being planned in UNICEF’s working areas.

(source: Kamal Kar and Petra Bongartz, 2006. Update to IDS Working Paper 257 PDF)