This is the introductory presentation for the Round Table Discussion on Urban Sanitation in line with ULCTS, hosted by IRC on 1 July 2015 in The Hague, The Netherlands. It provides some lessons learned and key questions to be asked about adaopting the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach to the urban context. Presented by Marielle Snel of IRC.

1. Supporting water sanitation
and hygiene services for life
Marielle Snel,
July 1st 2015
Urban sanitation in
line with Urban Led
Community Total
Sanitation

2. Purpose of the roundtable
discussion
• To reflect on Urban Led Community Total
Sanitation (ULCTS) and how it fits in line with
urban sanitation and its potential impact.
• Defining key suggestions on the way forward in
creating sustainable sanitation within cities

3. Key challenges defined
Urban poverty in the global South can only be significantly
reduced if the urban poor can influence decision makers
and be given space to design and implement their own
initiatives (Satterthwaite and Mitlin, 2013).
Photo: Peter DiCampo

4. The urban setting
• Communities are more heterogeneous
• Urban dwellers are more transient
• Issues relating to limited space, tenancy arrangements and pit-
emptying, particularly in urban slums.
In recognition of this, urban CLTS (ULCTS) has not been about
conducting conventional triggering, people digging pits or
erecting structures
(City bylaws would not permit this)

5. Adoption of CLTS in an urban setting
Many urban CLTS adaptations have focused on
empowering citizens to demand their rights,
bringing different stakeholders (e.g. the
municipality, landlords, tenants) together to
discuss and resolve the issue jointly and/or
enforcing existing laws regarding sanitation,
hygiene and public health.

6. Successes
CLTS has also been adapted to schools (as
School-led Total Sanitation or SLTS) and the
urban setting (UCLTS or Urban Citizen-led Total
Sanitation) and increasingly, there are calls for
innovative ways of utilising it in the post-
emergency context.

7. Pan-Africa programme: Reflect on CLTS in
eight African countries (2010-2015)
In some of the countries within the Pan African Programme, the CLTS
approach has been adapted and piloted within the urban context.
Most notably the work done by Plan Kenya in Mathare illustrates one
way in which this approach can be implemented in an urban slum
settings .
On a smaller scale, urban CLTS has also been piloted in peri-urban
and urban areas of Ethiopia, Uganda and Zambia.

8. One specific case on ULCTS: Zambia
• Urban CLTS through legal enforcement’
used in Choma and Lusaka. Initiated as
a response to cholera outbreaks in
Lusaka.
• Aspects of triggering still used, but
emphasis on legal enforcement of laws
and by-laws to address and confront
open defecation and improve general
hygiene.
• Institutions and businesses are
sensitised with campaigns and trainings
to ‘clean up their act’ and provide
proper sanitation facilities.
• Replication of approach conducted in
Chembe and Mansa Districts, contrib-
uted to enforcement of governmental
Public Health Act whereby public places
such as markets, bars, schools and
other settings are being inspected in
terms of their sanitation status.
Choma
Lusaka
Chembe
Mansa

9. Some of the lesson learnt around ULCTS
• As reflected in the Pan-Africa program and minimal existing data,
due to the complex nature of the urban environment the pre-
triggering stage may be the most important element of the
process.
• Reflect on broader societal issues/challenges are of importance.
This involves finding out community priorities and working out ways
these can be linked with the UCLTS process and how this fits
into the wider sanitation chain.
• Maintaining good relationships with a variety of different
stakeholders, especially politicians is extremely important.

10. Lesson learnt
• Exploring different ways to include the ULCTS approach as part of
a wider programme and possible part of the whole sanitation
chain, which includes dealing with faecal sludge.

11. Lessons learnt
• More documentation, which means more action research, is
needed, including more explicit reporting on the tools used, both
those adapted from rural CLTS and newly developed ones.
Continuously reflecting on how to find sustainability of programmes
is essential and again a focus on how ULCTS fits into the whole
sanitation chain.

12. Key question for our discussion
1. Given that Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS)
encourages and tries to enable people living in poverty to
decide together how they will create a clean hygienic
environment, can this approach make a significant contribution
in an urban setting (ULCTS)?
2. Where does ULCTS fit in the urban sanitation framework?