Background to Group

Goal

The goal of the group is to contribute to the increased impact of water supply programmes on people's livelihoods through increased coverage, greater sustainability and improved demand responsiveness of rural water supply systems.

The thematic group will work to achieve this goal by strengthening and developing the community management paradigm/model and based on this promoting improved policy and practice around the scaling up of community management.

The thematic group will focus on community managed water supply, principally in rural areas, within a livelihoods framework (sanitation, hygiene, food production, economic uses etc). It will identify and explore effective ways in which limited resources in the water sector can be used to serve the most people for the longest time in the quickest way.

Main groups of activities

• Bringing together a group of sector professionals to operate as a "Think Tank" to advance our common understanding of the issues related to scaling up community managed water supply programmes.
• Initiating specific “projects” (e.g. action research, workshops, etc) involving a wider group of stakeholders to improve our understanding of the scaling up community management.
• Engaging in advocacy activities to support and promote scaling up community management. Advocacy will be principally aimed at: a) policy makers and b) the wider community of sector professionals.