The originator of the popular internationally accepted sanitation strategy, Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), has declared that Ghana could achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) in Sanitation and become an open defecation free (ODF) country if the current blockages are removed.

Speaking at a Public Lecture organized by the Ministry of Local Government Rural Development (MLGRD) and supported by UNICEF, at the School of Public Health, Legon-Accra, Dr. Kar identified the main blockages as follows:

• Old mind set of providing, prescribing and teaching;
• Our attitude of ‘we do it for them’ and ‘they can’t do it’;
• Subsidy, technology prescription and teaching hygiene education; 
• VIP and communal latrines as the only solutions; and
• Serious inter-institutional in coordination

According to Dr. Kar, there is great potential of CLTS in Ghana. He cited the Tasundo story where one Mr. Yahaya, of DEHSO participated in the CLTS training workshop in Otupko, Nigeria and implemented it in Zabzugu-Tatale District and empowered a local community to go ODF. He was happy to note that for the last two years Tasundo is ODF. He added that apart from the intended outcome, there were fascinating un-intended outcomes like, community members trying to trigger their neighbouring communities to go ODF. Dr. Kamal then pose the question,  “Could we empower thousand of rural and peri-urban communities?”

Dr. Kamal noted that CLTS entails a shift of paradigm and change of power relations, from teaching to facilitating; from engineering designs to local designs; from targets and counting latrines to counting communities ODF; from big budgets and pressures to disburse to adequate budgets; from us helping the poor to communities taking responsibility; from us being sensitive to taboos to communities handling them and from sanitised words to the crude ones – faeces are SHIT!

On the way forward, Dr. Kamal suggested the following:

• that we help sceptics to experience CLTS, seeing it in action;
• that we don’t rush to scale. The number of good facilitators and capacity for follow-up must determine speed.  Go to scale steadily with quality;
• that we seek critical and honest feedback (e.g. learning workshops in Ghana);
• that we network, share experience (Regional Learning Platforms proposed in Ghana).  IDS website…..let’s have more; and
• that we keep the core elements of CLTS and innovate and adapt

He urged all to be advocates of CLTS as a way of attaining ODF communities. He concluded that CLTS is challenging, fulfilling and fun. -Abu Wumbei, RCN Ghana