Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is a an approach where facilitation -using participatory methods-enables communities to analyse their sanitation conditions and the risks of open defecation and thus triggers a desire in the community to take their own action and become open defecation free (ODF). CLTS has proved to work better than past approaches and has quickly expanded all over the world. In India, where more than half of the world's open defecators concentrate, CLTS faces difficulties, primarily due to some incompatibilities with the national sanitation campaign, but there are several areas where it has been introduced with certain success. Apart from that, there are evidences of communities reverting to open defecation -in India and elsewhere-which raises important questions about the sustainability of the outcomes of CLTS.Trying to shed some light on these issues, the present thesis aims at exploring the experiences of introduction of CLTS in Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Himachal Pradesh (HP), looking both at the policy process that shaped the sanitation intervention and at how and to what extent they contributed to sustainable sanitation. I use an analytical framework inspired in the Pathways Approach, where sustainability is seen from a dynamic and normative point of view -maintained ODF with increased social justice-and where the policy processes around sustainability, including policy narratives, agents and interests, are very relevant. I take three case studies for the analysis: Khandwa district (MP), Mandi district (HP) and Budni block (MP). The methodology is primarily qualitative and is based on interviews at all administrative levels and on intensive field research, including short visits to many Gram Panchayats (GP) and an in-depth study in a selected GP in each case study area.Evidences are diverse in each area. In Khandwa district CLTS was introduced in 2007. State level pressure to obtain sanitation awards and local vested interests resulted however in a mixed approach, using CLTS triggering tools but with supply-led subsidised latrine construction. Initial progress was uneven and there was reversion to open defecation later on. Some of the main causes were low appropriation, poor construction quality and lack of priority after the sanitation awards and post transfers of champions. In Mandi district, with an enabling state sanitation policy and supported by a local NGO, motivated district authorities started in late 2006 a sanitation campaign inspired in CLTS principles, but using community theatre and door to door visits instead of CLTS triggering. Latrine use increased sharply and has maintained, changing the social perception of sanitation. In Budni block, a CLTS champion became block CEO. His experience and the support of UNICEF helped counter conflicting interest and start a campaign coherent with CLTS in late 2010. GPs were triggered and monitoring committees created in order to make their GPs ODF. Still in the early stages, the campaign was observed to contribute to collective b...

This paper's main purpose is to use the capability approach for analysing how micro hydro power plant projects in Bolivia contribute to development and equality. As secondary purposes, it aims to analyse environmental effects and sustainability of the projects and to draw an outline between energy and Human Development. To that end, we examine nine projects implemented in indigenous communities of the Bolivian rural area.We first explain the role played by energy services in Human Development, focusing on their contribution to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Then we describe the context of nine development aid projects implemented in Bolivia and the characteristics of an impact assessment on these projects committed by the Bolivian Social Grants Program. This assessment is re-examined through the lens of the capability approach. Thus, attention shifts to equality issues in the fields of ethnicity, gender and income. Finally we analyse the environmental effects and the sustainability of the proects. This paper is an example of "best practice project", showing how renewable energy can help improving people's life in a clean and sustainable way and how the capability approach is a powerful tool for assessing this improvement.