| Community Led Total Sanitation in Yemen
In Yemen, around 56% of families don’t have access to
any sanitation facilities. Out of the rest of the population,
only a small percentage has access to safe sanitation, with
many using latrines that do not safely contain faeces but
discharge excreta into the open. UNICEF and WHO’s mid-term
assessment of progress towards the Millennium Development
Goals estimated that 30% of the Yemeni population were without
improved* sanitation in 2002, with figures as low as 14% in
rural areas.
While most of the country is made up of dry desert regions
with little rainfall (300 to 400 mm), at least three governorates
located on the mountainous terrains in the south, especially
the Ibb governorate, receive comparatively more rain (800-1000
mm average). Because fecal material is carried down the slope
of mountains by rain water, sources of drinking water are
often severely contaminated and the incidences of diarrhoea
and other waterborne diseases are quite high in these areas.
The Social Fund for Development (SFD) first came to know about
CLTS from Andy Robinson, a consultant for the World Bank,
who during an evaluation of SFD’s work in December 2006,
suggested SFD try out the CLTS approach in their rural sanitation
programme. After reading several publications on CLTS and
gathering information about the spread and scaling up of CLTS
in other countries in Asia, Mr. Abdul Wahab, the Head of the
Water and Environment Unit, contacted Dr Kamal Kar and invited
him to facilitate a hands-on training workshop on CLTS in
Yemen. What follows is an in-depth account of the workshop.
*(Improved
sanitation refers to one of the following: connection to a
public sewer or a septic system, pour-flush, simple pit or
ventilated improved pit latrine; whereas use of a public or
shared latrine, open pit latrine or bucket latrine counts
as unimproved sanitation)
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