Failure to change social norms in Southern Madagascar resulted in the widespread failure of Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) and other development programmes.
Social Norms Analysis was used to identify the barriers to changing the social norm on open defecation and define approaches to establishing a new social norm so that improved sanitation practices would be adopted.
Institutional triggering, shit festivals and customary laws are tools that can support the normalisation and sustainability of behaviour change.
Applying social norms tools has potential to strengthen the performance of CLTS more broadly in other countries and regions.