

Busia County is the only County in Kenya which is Open Defecation Free, having attained this status in 2015. Their journey to Open Defecation Free started with Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) in July 2010. During CLTS triggering, the community together Public Health Officers, Community Health Volunteers (CHVs), Community Health Extension Workers (CHEWs) and Natural Leaders addressed the importance of building a latrine. All efforts were then directed to ensure that people build and used toilets. It did not matter what the structure looked like as all they wanted was to end open defecation. Community members came up with latrines that they could afford and in most cases these were basic unimproved toilets. After attaining ODF the major concern became ensuring that the toilets and latrine use was sustained to avoid relapse. At this point the county government alongside other partners started implementing sanitation marketing.
Read more about Busia County's journey to ODF and how Samia sub-county's experience of sanitation marketing