Resources

This handbook has been compiled as a source of ideas and experiences that can be used for CLTS orientation workshops, advocacy to stakeholders, training facilitators and natural leaders and implementing CLTS activities. It is a resource book especially for field staff, facilitators and trainers for planning, implementation and follow-up for CLTS.

Users of this handbook must feel free to use its guidelines in the way they find best. The methods described are not the only ones for implementing CLTS. Users are encouraged to explore different ways of preparing for CLTS, for triggering, for post-triggering follow-up, and for supporting and spreading CLTS that fit with local conditions, cultures and opportunities.

Facilitators must feel free to be inventive and adaptive, and to use their best judgment in deciding what to do. The ideas and advice that follow have been tried and tested, but it is for facilitators themselves to decide what works for them.

This manual suggests themes, training methods and activities to facilitators carrying out governance training programmes, giving a foundation in the governance debate and promoting citizenÆs desire and capacity to take an active part in the processes of democracy. The manual is addressed to trainers as a guide in conducting a five-day programme, for groups of 20-25 people, in governance issues. It consists of 14 sessions and applies participatory training methods requiring the participants to analyse situations and express their opinions. The trainers therefore should have special facilitating skills and the ability to synthesise the responses given by participants. The manual addresses the following key issues: the concepts of governance and good governance; the rationale for good governance; how to promote good governance and encourage active citizenship; and the roles of active citizenship and civil society organisations. All sessions are structured and easily accessible, setting out the objectives for trainers and participants, giving indication of the duration of the session, and suggestions for training methods. The session is then explained step by step with suggested timings. The sessions include: citizens and governance; introduction to human rights; civil society; issues faced by citizens; women in governance; overcoming injustices in civil society; active citizenship; civil society organisations; advocacy for civil society organisations; networking; participants as actors; and an evaluation and closing session.

When seeking to assess the linkages between participation, demand-responsiveness, sustainability, use and equity for women and men and poor people, a methodology is needed that is participatory, and gender and poverty sensitive. In 1997 a group of water and development specialists came to together to assess why such approaches had not caught on in the water sector. Led by the World Bank Water and Sanitation Programme together with the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, a new methodology was developed: the Methodology for Participatory Assessment (MPA). As a multi-level instrument it aims to combine sustainability analysis of community managed domestic water services with the analysis of gender and poverty perspectives. The development, use and evaluation of this new methodology are the subjects of this book. It describes the objectives, history and social and scientific background of the development of the methodology, followed by a detailed description and analysis of the methodology itself, with case studies of its use and impacts. Validation took place in a global study in which women and men in 88 rural communities in 15 countries used the MPA to evaluate their domestic water supplies. It presents the study results, the implications for policies and program planning of domestic water supply projects, and the lessons for training in the and use of the methodology.

This booklet describes a participatory monitoring and evaluation system for grassroots livelihoods and micro-finance programs. It contrasts the traditional techniques used to monitor and evaluate credit programmes with those of the group-oriented internal learning system (ILS). It gives details of how ILS works, a five step process involving collecting information, assessing the direction of change, analysing the information, planning based on learning and the documentation of results. Throughout it emphasises the participatory, flexible, simple, and decentralised method of the ILS.