Community based initiatives focus on behavioural change needed to ensure real and sustainable improvements – investing in com- munity mobilisation raising awareness that the actions of individuals and communities does make a difference. The ideal is local solutions leading to improved sustainability.
Collection of surface run-off water by the ponds made for groundwater recharging (Chak Ramnagar village, Bharatpur). RSNH Photo Library
Water conservation through community participation
By Satya Prakash Mehra
To resolve local environmental problems, especially related to water, the scientific community must consider available tra- ditional options and solutions. In Project Boond the Rajputana Society of Natural History (RSNH) has combined traditional Banjara knowledge with advanced modern water-harvesting techniques Sustainable community structures for collecting and storing water were built keeping local en- vironmental conditions in mind.
From floods to droughts Bharatpur, the eastern gate of Rajasthan, lies in the Yamuna flood plain, at the con-
fluence of three rivers: Ruparail, Banganga and Gambhiri. The region has a history of floods and droughts. The frequency of these natural phenomena changed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with fewer floods and more droughts. The main cause was almost certainly human interference in the natural flow patterns of the rivers, including the building of dams. By the mid-2000s, water inflow from all the rivers feeding Bharatpur had been reduced to nothing, re- sulting in an acute shortage of surface water all over the region. Due to the shortage of surface water people started exploiting the underground water table. The failure of the monsoon – with a lack of rainfall – made matters worse.
RSNH took on the challenge of raising awareness of the need to save water in the region. In 2007 an RSNH youth team sur- veyed the downstream areas of the earlier existing rivers to assess how people view water conservation and the importance of the Keoladeo National Park, a World Heritage and Ramsar site. The park also faced the threat of water shortages. The park’s forest management team used the baseline data collected from the survey- questionnaire to identify gaps in research, highlighting the need for a change in public attitudes to water conservation. It was also apparent that long-term solutions to local problems of water scarcity were needed to change mindsets.
Community-led total sanitation – An innovative methodology for mobilising communities
Community-led total sanitation (CLTS) is an approach that helps communities completely eliminate open defecation. Communities are assisted in the conduct of their own appraisal and analysis of open defecation and take their own action to end open defecation.
At the heart of CLTS lies the recognition that merely providing toilets does not guarantee their use, nor results in improved sanitation and hygiene. Earlier approaches to sanitation set high initial standards and offered subsidies as an incentive. But this often led to uneven adoption, problems with long-term sustainability and only partial use. It also created a culture of dependence on subsidies. Open defecation and the cycle of faecal-oral contamination went on spreading disease.
In contrast, CLTS focuses on the behavioural change needed to ensure real and sustainable improvements – investing in community mobili- zation instead of hardware, and shifting the focus from toilet construction for individual households to the creation of ‘open defecation-free’ villages. By raising awareness that as long as even a minority continues to defecate in the open, everyone is at risk of disease, CLTS triggers the community’s desire for change, propels them into action and encourages innovation, mutual support and appropriate local solutions, thus leading to greater ownership and sustainability.
CLTS was pioneered in 2000 by Kamal Kar, a development consultant from India, together with the Village Education Resource Centre, a partner of WaterAid Bangladesh, while evaluating a traditionally subsidized sanitation programme in a village in Bangladesh. The approach spread fast in Bangladesh where informal institutions and NGOs play a key role. The World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) played an important part in extending the project to neighbouring India and subsequently to Indonesia and parts of Africa.