Resources

This paper provides several examples of inappropriate policies and programmes in the field of natural resource management, as a basis for highlighting and reflecting on the importance of appropriate behaviour and attitudes on the part of policy makers and programm managers.

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 book is a collection of selected papers by Anil C. Shah. The book spans the worlds of Government and civil society over a lengthy career working with the poor and marginalised.

It covers a wide range of activities based on direct personal experience and innovation in the field. It contains a mixture of short personal articles and longer, broader and more detailed articles.

The work is presented from a variety of contexts ranging from government administration to NGO's, from community development to joint forest management, from watershed development to participatory irrigation management, and from behaviour, attitudes and training to influencing and changing policy.

The Dampara Water Management Project (DWMP) was implemented in 1998 in Northern Bangladesh for the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The task was to provide flood control to a 15,000ha area which experiences flash flooding several times annually, and the main activity was the construction of a 30k embankment along the Kangsha River. A PRA (Participatory Rural Appraisal) approach was taken, involving the land owners in the affected area, and the alignment of the embankment was discussed. Public negotiations were held in the fields, going plot-by-plot with land owners for them to decide what part of their land would be expropriated for the building of the embankment. The strategy used was that the people were negotiating with each other, not with the project itself. A power analysis of each community was developed through participatory wealth ranking, which helped ensure protection for the vulnerable, an also worked as a management tool. Project personnel used Venn diagrams to identify each community's powerful people, to be used in staff meetings. While the project's participatory process continued in the communities to the end of the project , assigning and adjusting ratings confidentially amongst staff, helped project social and multi-sector technical personnel to develop a common understanding and coordinated approach with community members.

This very brief discussion note for the SACOSAN conference in Dhaka 2003, describes the concept of community-led total sanitation (CLTS). It looks at the realities, vision and challenges of CLTS in improving the wellbeing for many rural and/or poor communities. It gives short comments on what has happened so far; benefits; how the technique has developed and briefly how it works; shifts from target driven partial sanitation (TDPS) to CLTS; non-negotiable principles for CTLS; scaling up of CTLS; and potential of CTLS for the future. The note also deals with some of the questions commonly asked regarding CTLS. community development, wastewater management, sanitation, sewage, hygien