Asia Pro Eco Project on Capacity Building for Enhancing Local Participation in Water Supply and Sanitation Interventions in Poor Urban Areas

Period: March 2006 - February 2008

Client(s): European Commission (EC)

The project aimed to define strategies to maximize involvement of the community in water supply and sanitation interventions in urban poor areas. Thus, the objective of the project was to find innovative approaches, best practices and decisive factors ensuring effective community participation. Main focus of the project was on urban poor where reinforcing local capacity was especially needed. Moreover, the project was designed to develop training courses. It was addressed to professionals of the water supply and sanitation sector dealing with capacity building and community participation including technical trainers, academia, government bodies, NGOs and grassroots organizations. The project was also aimed to learn from case studies conducted in Bangladesh and Nepal. Different types of urban settlements and participatory approaches were examined in order to create a broad bunch of models. Even though field work was conducted in Nepal and Bangladesh, most of the findings could be extrapolated to the rest of the region.