From 2012 to 2016, Action Against Hunger worked with local authorities to trigger 138 communities in Yobe State, Northern Nigeria, using the Community-Led Total Sanitation methodology. The objective of this approach is to empower the community to realize the negative impacts of open defecation on health and wellbeing, and thus mobilize itself to eliminate open defecation and improve sanitation with limited external intervention. Mid-2017, Action Against Hunger conducted a review of the communities to draw lessons from the effectiveness and sustainability of the approach.
Humanitarian Context
In Nigeria, diarrheal diseases are the third leading cause of mortality, accounting for over 75,000 deaths of children aged 1-59 months in 2015 (WHO, 2016). Access to improved sanitation in rural areas is limited. According to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation, rural areas in Nigeria had a 33.8% prevalence of open defecation in 2015. Open defecation is associated with high levels of diarrhea, stunting, and mortality.
Yobe State in northeast Nigeria is currently in a stage of transition from emergency to development. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that recent and ongoing conflict had destroyed about 75% of WASH Infrastructure in the region (2016). According to the 2015 Millennium Development Goals Survey Report, 25% of households in Yobe State were using improved sanitation facilities, below the national average of 29%.
Improving sanitation and eliminating open defecation is a national and state priority, codified both in the national Roadmap to Eliminate Open Defecation by 2025 (Federal Government of Nigeria & UNICEF, 2016) and the Yobe State Water Supply and Sanitation Policy (2010). To enhance these efforts to improve access to sanitation in Yobe State, Action Against Hunger began applying the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach in 2012