An Evaluation of the Sustainability of Community Led Total Sanitation

Although Community Led Total Sanitation has become the developing world's port of call to address deplorable sanitation conditions, it is plagued with several sustainability issues. CLTS was introduced in Sierra Leone by UNICEF in 2008 and has spread across all districts of the country. This study investigates the sustainability of the Community-Led Total Sanitation implementation in the Bo District, Sierra Leone, and it will examine its suitability to the socio-economic contexts and implications on the forest resources in the district. CLTS is a relatively new developmental approach in sanitation and not much has been done to evaluate its negative effects on communities. As it is widely considered a success story 'there has been so much excitement around CLTS-and not a little skepticism-that we needed a sober assessment'. Since issues like inclusion, poverty, environmental and technological challenges tend to be glossed over by the current implementers, the goal is to suggest ways as to how to address such points during the implementation phase to make CLTS more sustainable.