Phase I: Literature Review
Phase I saw the completion of a global literature review, which brought together a wide range of documentation on water supply and sanitation services in small town contexts and attempted to draw learning from other sectors. Initial findings were presented and discussed at a planning meeting in London on 13th August 2009, involving Country Programme representatives from three of the six study countries and the project management team. Some key areas of interest began to emerge, including urban planning, decentralisation and scaleable technology. These will help shape the themes for the remainder of the project, in particular the stakeholder consultation.
Phase II: Workshops and Discussion
As part of phase II activities, Erik Harvey (Technical Support Manager, WaterAid) and Ken Caplan (Director, BPD) ran a side event at Stockholm World Water Week in mid-August. This was very well-attended and provoked some ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking around service provision in small towns, particularly through the lens of other sectors. An ‘Expert Workshop’ was later held in Johannesburg (30th September-2nd October 2009), which brought together WaterAid staff from the UK and the six country programmes, partners, government representatives and small town stakeholders from each of the countries and a panel of international multi-sectoral experts. The workshop provided an opportunity to feed into the global literature review and into more specific information reviews being carried out in several of the study countries. Clear themes were identified and these were used to pinpoint key small town stakeholders and potential interviewees and to draft questions upon which the in-country work will be based.
Phase III: Stakeholder Consultation
Following this workshop, the project entered phase III - stakeholder consultations in six study countries: Nepal, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Madagascar. Intial findings suggest that a holistic approach is required to providing water and sanitation in small towns. Erik Harvey, Technical Support Manager, said: “Our research suggests that you cannot plan water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services for small towns without getting deeply involved in long-term plans. The design of WASH services should be linked to an understanding of the different towns’ functions, their varying demographics, and their levels of autonomy.”
Government involvement was also identified as being sometimes misguided, suggesting the need for the responsibility of specific services to be dissolved and decentralised. “Some governments are applying a cookie cutter approach to small towns, resulting in inappropriate and unsustainable solutions,” explained Erik. “They should be tackling local capacity and funding rather than trying to deal with the intricate technical issues from a central level.”
These initial findings will form part of a multimedia report that aims to provide a framework towards identifying technological, financial and management approaches for permanent water, sanitation and hygiene services within rapidly-growing small towns.