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Led Total Sanitation in Ethiopia
For
many years, Ethiopia has been at the bottom of the international
league table regarding access to ‘on-site’ sanitation,
estimated at less than 18% in 2002/03. There are however some
success stories emerging. In Ethiopia, it is not only the
widespread practice of open defecation that puts people’s
health at risk – in many rural and peri-urban areas,
people also use open pit latrines which do not eliminate the
health risks posed by flies.
On the initiative of the Ethiopian government’s Health
Department, a campaign for total sanitation was started in
SNNPR (Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples
Region) around 2003/2004. A programme was introduced
which made it compulsory for each household to have a latrine.
As no subsidy was given for this and the idea behind the programme
was to achieve ODF status in all villages in the region, it
can be seen as a precursor to CLTS. The critical difference
at the time was that this was a government-driven rather than
a community-led initiative. However, it helped to raise awareness
of the need for improved sanitation.
In October 2006, Kamal Kar visited Arba Minch on the invitation
of the Irish NGO Vita, and ran a six day training workshop
on community-led livelihood improvement. CLTS was used as
an entry-point strategy. This workshop was followed by a national
level sharing workshop in Addis Ababa, which was attended
by many bilateral, multi-lateral, international and national
agencies and NGOs.
Plan Regional East and Southern Africa (RESA)
had already been planning to introduce CLTS in all Plan countries
in East and Southern Africa, because of their positive experiences
with CLTS in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Nepal. Therefore, when
they heard about the Vita workshop in Addis Ababa, they sent
PLAN staff to attend and meet Kamal Kar to discuss a workshop
for Plan staff from Tanzania, Ethiopia, Egypt, Kenya, Uganda,
Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Sudan in Tanzania in 2007.
Following on from the Tanzania workshop in February 2007,
which was attended by frontline water and sanitation staff
and Programme Unit managers from the above countries, a further
Plan workshop for water and sanitation advisors from the above
countries and Plan Ethiopia staff was held in Awassa, Ethiopia
in the same month. Staff from WaterAid, and local NGOs, as
well as government representatives also attended. The workshop
report below gives details of this workshop.
After the workshop, a national workshop in Addis Ababa was
organised where eight CLTS triggered communities were invited
to make presentations of their action plans to workshop participants
who included senior officers from the Ministry of Health,
heads of INGOs and NGOs, representatives from Plan UK, the
Netherlands and RESA.
This page will update on progress and learning in
this area, as well as other CLTS initiatives in Ethiopia.
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