Providing adequate sanitation facilities to rural dwellers remains one of the biggest development challenges in many developing countries. Target C of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7 was “to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and sanitation”. Currently, the rural sanitation sector is fragmented, with different actors involved with differing approaches in improving sanitation. Meanwhile, it is undisputed that most of these strategies in the past have failed. Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) represents a radical alternative to the conventional top-down approaches to sanitation. It focuses on changing behaviours and attitudes through Community mobilization to build and use toilets to stop open defecation. This research reviews experiences of the Wa West District in promoting rural sanitation using CLTS. The research used observations, personal interviews and focus group discussions to collect data. The potential of CLTS in tackling sanitation challenges and issues of long term sustainability is recognized and lessons learnt from its implementation in the Wa West District are shared. The challenges of CLTS are also critically examined by this study as well as aspects that require further research.

Keywords: Sanitation, CLTS, challenges, prospects, Northern Ghana, Wa West.