We need to look closely and critically at the ways in which we live, work, eat, and interact with our environment if we wish for life on the planet to be sustained for future generations. Sanitation is no exception.
This is a book chapter taken from Sustainable Sanitation For All: Experiences, Challenges and Innovations.
Sustainability is currently one of the key challenges in Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) and wider water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) practice, subsuming issues such as behaviour change, equity and inclusion, physical sustainability and sanitation marketing, monitoring and verification, engagement of governments, NGOs and donors, particularly after open defecation free (ODF) status is reached.
Achievement of ODF status is now recognized as only the first stage in a long process of change and sanitation improvement, with new challenges emerging every step of the way, such as how to stimulate progress up the sanitation ladder, how to ensure the poorest and marginalized are reached, or how to maintain and embed behaviour change.
This chapter outlines the rationale and central themes of the book, highlighting key issues raised, the dimensions of sustainability that are addressed, and proposes ways forward if we are to achieve the ambitious aim of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of universal access to improved sanitation by 2030.
