CLTS plus : making CLTS ever more inclusive

If CLTS is to eliminate open defecation, issues of disability inclusion must be fully addressed. Research in Malawi aimed to discover if WASH practitioners, after a short training, could implement CLTS in a more inclusive way, and whether this made a difference to disabled people in the community, in terms of access to sanitation and hygiene facilities. After a 3-day training, CLTS implementers designed and implemented a CLTS+ Action Plan, in which additional triggering activities were introduced, and more attention paid to households with disabled and older people post-triggering. This CLTS+ intervention resulted in increased awareness among implementers and community members of the access needs of older and disabled people, and in adaptations to improve accessibility of some household latrines. Endline data will tell us whether this has resulted in improved outcomes for disabled and older people. Further piloting will be needed to explore how to incorporate this training into regular CLTS capacity building.