Comparing Rural Sanitation Campaigns in Mozambique: Lessons and Considerations for Achieving Sustainable Results

This five-page case study, published by the Netherlands Development Organisation(SNV), was produced to reflect on the rationale and success factors of the implementation of different approaches to community participation and community mobilisation in water, sanitation, and hygiene programmes in Mozambique. The paper serves as a means to document experiences gained during the implementation of the different approaches. It includes reflections from the SNV Mozambique’s WASH team, the government's water sectors, and the implementing agencies of the "One Million Initiative."

The One Million Initiative is a joint programme with the Mozambican government, the Government of The Netherlands, and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and includes partners such as SNV and relevant Mozambican government departments. The programme is designed to improve rural water supply, sanitation, and hygiene. The paper explains that the initial approach the programme took - participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation (PHAST), along with traditional Community Participation and Education (PEC) - was not having all the desired impacts, particularly around latrine construction. It was felt that the chosen approaches were not resulting in massive behavioural change within the communities. The report suggests that the reason could be that there was not enough involvement of community leaders in the mobilisation of their people. Therefore, UNICEF decided to introduce Community Lead Total Sanitation (CLTS) into the programme. CLTS is an integrated approach aimed at achieving and sustaining open defecation free (ODF) status. It entails facilitating the community's analysis of their own sanitation profile, their practices of defecation, and the consequences, which leads to collective action to become ODF.

The case study explains that while the CLTS principle does not oblige community leadership to come from local authorities, it can be from activists or "natural leaders". Natural Leaders (NLs) are activists and enthusiasts who emerge and take the lead during CLTS processes. Men, women, youth, and children can all be natural leaders. Some natural leaders become community consultants, who trigger and provide encouragement and support to communities other than their own. The essence of CLTS is about raising awareness and bringing behavioural change into the community. "Triggering” is the starting stage, where awareness is brought about amongst the leadership or influential people of the community, the Natural Leaders. They will spread the message and show the need to do something. In this process, SNV’s role focused on the strengthening of the facilitators’ capacities in terms of training them how to trigger a change process, what the role of the facilitator is and how changes can be successful. Training sessions were conducted by SNV and UNICEF Officials.

At the same time that CLTS was launched, an award system was also introduced via a competition in which communities wereawarded a prize when a latrine is built. When a community becomes ODF, another prize is awarded. In addition, the administrative post and district with the highest number of ODF communities and their leaders also win a prize. ODF communities also receive a board stating they are open-defecation free.

According to the report, the combined approach of CLTS and awards brought good results in terms of achieved numbers. The main challenge of this system is that government programmes at present cannot afford to make extra funds available to sponsor prizes. Secondly, even if such funds were easily raised, another problem with awarding prizes is that people then become focused on the prize rather than the health and hygiene reasons behind becoming ODF. The report states that the message of CLTS should focus on improvement of peoples health, avoidance of disease, and cutting contact with excreta, and allow a space for recognition rather than awarding a prize.

The report concludes that through planning is crucial to determine the sustainability of each approach (CLTS, CLTS + awarding, PHAST). The ideal procedure would be to pilot separately each new model and approach and study its results and usefulness.