Resources

In this article, the authors argue that women's involvement (despite initial resistance from the village males) in a participatory water project has had an impact on their role in the community in northern Pakistan. By recounting the history and context of the water project, the barriers faced, the process of participation and the final resolution to the water problem by the community, the authors discuss the wider issue of gender politics. They show how in choosing to go with the women's strategy for harnessing water, the role of gender in mediating access to and management of water becomes apparent and how larger shifts occur in terms of community participation in development.

In this article, the authors recount the experiences of an NGO, Nepal Water for Health (NEWAH), in helping the community of Lele Mahadev Khola village to manage their water system through maintenance and funding. The activities carried out by the NGO through PAR is detailed with insights on what the PAR approach has been able to achieve.

The article describes the state of the water management system in Pakora, Pakistan when the PAR team made forays to assess the situation. Information on the process adopted by the PAR team is recounted and the response from the community is included on key issues such as the committee and transparency and record keeping. The article concludes by providing evidence of improvements to the water management system and assessing the gains made by the community.

This assessment records the experiences of communities after the PAR intervention in Nepal where four communities had started managing their water resources. Details are provided on the focus group discussions and the future plans of the communities. Also included are the reflections of the PAR team members.

This article reviews a project in Pune, India, where 400 community toilet blocks have been built through a partnership between municipal government, NGOs and community-based organisations. In 1999, the Municipal commissioner sought to greatly increase the scale of public toilet construction and to ensure that toilets more appropriate than those previously constructed by the municipality got built, by inviting local NGOs to make bids for toilet construction and maintenance. One of the NGOs that received contracts had long had a partnership with two people's organisations, the National Slum Dwellers Federation and Mahila Milan (a network of slum and pavement women's savings and credit groups). The three institutions had been working in Pune for five years prior to this, supporting savings and credit movement among women slum dwellers, which had included experiments with community toilets. One factor that constrained community participation was the municipal commissioner's desire to complete the programme while he was still in office. Despite this limitation, many of the inhabitants were involved in the design and construction of the toilets. The authors conclude that the project was made possible through a reconfiguration of the relationship between city government, NGOs and communities, with the government recognising the capacity of the community organisations to develop their own solutions. The project was unusual for India in its transparency and accountability, with weekly stakeholder meetings and constant communication between community leaders and government officials.