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Community-driven development for water and
sanitation in urban areas: its contribution to meeting
the Millennium Development Goal targets
David Satterthwaite, Gordon McGranahan and Diana Mitlin
Community organizations working with local NGOs have been
responsible for many of the most cost-effective initiatives to
improve and extend provision for water and sanitation to lowincome
urban households. Some have achieved considerable
scale, especially where water and sanitation utilities and local
governments work with them.
Many of the initiatives that improved and extended provision for
water and sanitation were not ‘water and sanitation’ projects
but initiatives through which urban poor households developed
better quality and more secure housing – for instance through
squatter upgrading and tenure regularization or serviced site
schemes.
These were often supported by loan finance that helped
households or community organizations to fund improved
provision for water and sanitation or to fund the development
of new homes with improved provision. Some of these initiatives
led to more effective and much less costly ways to develop the
trunk infrastructure into which most community- driven water
and sanitation initiatives need to integrate in urban areas. These
initiatives have considerable relevance for meeting the water
and sanitation target within the Millennium Development Goals as
• they show how it’s possible to reach even the poorest
households in urban areas with improved provision.
• they generally have much lower unit-costs per person reached
than conventional government or private utility managed
initiatives, and greater possibilities of cost recovery.
At the core of most initiatives described in this booklet is the
possibility for urban poor groups and their organizations to
influence what is done and to be involved in doing it. If the MDGs
are to be met, more equal relationships are needed between
urban poor groups and local governments and water and sanitation
providers. This means a shift from conventional patronagebased
relationships to relationships that are more transparent,
accountable to urban poor groups and within the law.
This is the change that has to permeate all levels – from the
lowest political unit (the ward, commune, neighbourhood, parish)
through city, provincial and national governments. International
agencies will have to increase their support to community-driven
initiatives but in ways that are accountable to urban poor groups
and that catalyse and support these groups’ own resources and
capacities. And, as importantly, support these groups’ efforts to
develop effective partnerships with local governments.
For more information visit:
http://www.wsscc.org/fileadmin/files/pdf/publication/
Community_driven_development.pdf
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