Communities must play a central role if cleanliness and sanitation efforts are to be effective and sustained. Community participation is even more important in places like Nagaland where communities face the challenges of poor infrastructure, lack of space, inadequate basic facilities and lack of livelihood. Engagement between the community and the authorities, and the direct involvement of the community in effecting solutions addressing cleanliness and sanitation yields results that are not just effective but are sustained beyond the focus of government programs like Swachh Bharat Mission.
Community awareness and participation is the key to success for achieving cleanliness and sanitation goals. The municipal or local bodies can never be successful in urban sanitation and cleanliness without active community awareness and participation, whatever may be the investments made through Government funds.
The local bodies such as ward authorities or village councils are the institutions of grass root democratic setup. It also has an outreach service at the ward or village level through which it can easily interact with the people on almost all-important issues. The local body should, therefore, seriously consider involving the community in all programs through a consultative process and variety of other communication approaches and adopt strategies which are acceptable to the community.
Authorities and local bodies should first of all recognize the need for community awareness and participation when it comes to achieving cleanliness and sanitation goals. Various community awareness programs should be initiated at regular intervals. The process of building community awareness and involvement should be a well-planned out endeavor. Communication methods to engage the community may be charted systematically and adequate budget allocations should be made for community awareness programs.
Most importantly, there should be an enabling environment for community participation. The members of the community are essential for making democratic processes effective and they should, therefore, be enabled to participate. This is particularly important because it provides a platform to the citizens to influence policy development and implementation. While various platforms and systems for citizens’ participation have developed organically, there is a need to institutionalize them to make them effective and sustainable.
The suggested case in point here is Aongza Ward, Mokokchung town. No doubt, the ward can still do so much more and there certainly are constraints. However, Aongza ward has without a doubt proved that they are the “cleanest ward” or “best maintained ward” in Mokokchung town year after year. This is justified by their marathon achievements in all cleanliness parameters set by the Mokokchung Municipal Council. This is because, among other things, the ward has institutionalized community participation in cleanliness and sanitation. Aongza ward is ahead of the rest in terms of cleanliness and sanitation because they have institutionalized community participation.