Printed on Demand. Contact [email protected], if currently unavailable. World Bank Technical Paper 207. Development projects that encourage direct community participation ususally meet with greater success than those that do not. This guidebook describes ways of letting poor people help monitor and evaluate the water and sanitation programs that serve them. It provides simple shortcuts for building community participation and consensus. Decisionmakers will learn the different risks posed by this approach, such as viewing community participation as a panacea. The study describes ways to set reasonable goals without discouraging unexpected progress. It provides a handy framework of key indicators that can be used to monitor progress. These indicators gauge a project's cost, sustainability, and effectiveness. They rate a community's abiltiy to expand services and handle more operating responsibilities. Also available in French: (ISBN 0-8213-2782-8) Stock No. 12782.

These guidelines are to help planners and managers in national governments to develop their own rural water supply and sanitation programmes. They can also be used by consultants, and NGOs could adapt them for their programmes. The Guidelines have been developed to help planners and managers to meet two challenges in rural water supply and sanitation (RWSS): 1. how to integrate the different components of RWSS - water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion, and now, water resource management (in relation to domestic water supply and sanitation), together with the institutional arrangements to provide the services. 2. to enable all the stakeholders to participate in the planning process - women and men in the villages and communities to be served; field staff of implementing and facilitating agencies; the various technical and management staff at district, provincial and central levels; and other organisations including NGOs and the private sector. The Guidelines and supporting Manual provide a participatory process and methods to enable the user to address both these challenges. The process and methods can be applied in most contexts - they are intended to help the user to develop their own solutions to their own issues and problems.