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 has now entered phase III , which will centre around stakeholder consultations in the six study countries.