Development Aspects Impressum Editors

Ensuring effectiveness

During the design phase, three checks were carried out to guarantee the effective- ness of the programme. One check was to ensure a fair distribution of the antici- pated trainees over different social and professional echelons to avoid the common problem of overtraining senior officials and community members whilst neglecting representation from lower social strata. The second check was to make sure that attention in the programme was fairly distributed over the five major issues and related topics. The third check was to see if the different stakeholders had good access to the CD programme. The latter check is demonstrated in table 4.

Code	CD intervention	Water utility				Local government							Other govern- ment					CBOs + vulnerable groups							Private sector					Other
		1	2	3	4	1	2	3	4	5	6	1		2	3	4	1		2	3	4	5	6	1		2	3	4	1		2	3	4	5
WS1	Governance and management of WatSan services
W4	Household water supply systems
S1	Solid waste management and treatment
E2	Protection of the urban environment
G3	Municipal land issues, planning systems and legislation
GVG2	Community capacity-building for responsible action
LED1	LED opportunities in SWM and WatSan

Note: the numbers shown with each target group correspond with those shown in table 3 Abbreviations: LED, local economic development; SWM, solid waste management

5. Action planning

The CD interventions were designed to be issue-based, problem-oriented and output-focused. The interventions used the participatory learning and action ap- proach and included presentations, skits, role plays, group discussions, field vis- its and transect walks to deliver the content. All interventions concluded with a personal action plan that required each participant or a group of participants to generate a set of activities that was within their authority and capabilities to im- plement and that would make a contribution to the improvement of water and environmental services. The action plans included short- and longer-term actions and emphasized “quick wins” that would demonstrate the ability of empowered stakeholders to achieve immediate results. A simple format was developed for the action plans (table 5).

Table 5: Format for the action plan

Town issue	Change if the issue is addressed	Strategic action	Implemen- tation steps	Output	Time frame	Team leader	Team members
……………	……………	……………	……………	……………	……………	……………	……………

6. Validation

Just before the start of the delivery of the CD programme, a validation mission was fielded to visit all 11 towns. The objectives of the validation were to provide information to the stakeholders in each town on the impending delivery of CDIs, to ensure that the proposed schedule of CDIs did not conflict with national or local calendars, and to obtain support for the participatory learning and action approach, which was to be used in the delivery of the CDIs. By the end of each town’s validation process, the local stakeholders had established a CD Coordinat- ing Committee that was set up to select the participants, coordinate the delivery of the CDIs and also as a means for follow-up in ensuring that the training would benefit the town and not just the individual trainees.

4. Implementation and completion

1. Implementation of the CD interventions

During the implementation, the programme of 27 different interventions was re- duced to 21 (shown in table 6). In fact 10 very short local economic development (LED) interventions were reduced to four longer events for the practical purpose of saving both participants’ and facilitators’ travel time and expenses. Consequently, the 110 training events were reduced to 98. These events were delivered by a group of 11 facilitators. The participant evaluations showed that expectations had been met and that learning objectives had been achieved. No less than 85 per cent of the participants said that they would bring about changes in their places of work with the help of the action plans and with the new skills acquired during the training.

Table 6: The CD interventions

Developer	Theme	Code	CD intervention
UNESCO-	Drinking water,	WS1	Governance and management of WatSan services
IHE	sanitation and	WS2	Financial and commercial management of WatSan services
	solid waste	W1	Management of water losses in the distribution system
	management	W2	Operation and maintenance of water treatment plants
		W3	Water quality management and water treatment
		W4	Household water supply systems
		S1	Solid waste management and treatment
		S2	Design and operation of decentralized sanitation systems
		E1	Environment, public health and hygiene
		E2	Protection of the urban environment
FCM	Pro-poor	G1	Revenue mobilization for services delivery
	governance	G2