Sustainability Planning and Monitoring

THE MPA IN ACTIONvisits and conducts a participatory review with thisarea separately.Single parent householdsIn defining and classifying who are poor,intermediate, and rich, the position of singleheadedhouseholds needs special attention. Ahigh percentage of female-headed households inthe community has been known to have bothpositive and negative effects on gender burdensand benefits in water supply services.The positive effects could be that, in female-headedhouseholds, women’s access to decisions, andnew maintenance and management roles maybe easier. These women sometimes have a goodincome and control of that income from their ownenterprises. Negative effects have been that often,many female-headed households are poor andmay have less capacity than other poor familiesto contribute labor in addition to or instead ofcash payments.Institutional assessments:stakeholders’ and policy meetingsThe first level institutional assessment is usually ata project implementing unit level, which isgenerally the district, but in small provinces mayeven be at the province level. The stakeholders’meeting examines the agency approaches thatwere used to achieve the results in the field. Femaleand male field staff from different project agencies,and women and men from the communityrepresenting the users, get together for this onedaymeeting. They assess what, in the experienceof all stakeholder groups, are the strengths andweaknesses at the agency level and identify areasfor improvement.It is necessary to conduct these meetings in thelanguage that is understood and spoken regularlyby women and men representatives from thecommunity, and to ensure an environment inwhich they do not feel inhibited about expressingtheir views. During the meeting, the participantsagain use participatory tools and techniques andscore their group’s outcomes. Although literacy isgenerally required for the use of the institutionaltools of the MPA, in cases where communityrepresentatives are not sufficiently literate, the toolscan be made more participatory through the useof visuals and symbols devised on the spot toreplace written words.After the agency level meetings are over, a similarmeeting takes place with policymakers and projectmanagers to assess various policy aspects thatguide, or have guided, implementation (seeChapter 6 for details).4.9 Visualization andself-scoringAll assessments use open-ended and visualmethods to make local situations and practicesvisible. Most of these methods do not requireliteracy and so allow those with low or noliteracy - often women, and poorer and olderpeople to participate.Since the outcomes are visible to all, they generatetransparency, discussion, and the emergence ofone or two consensus viewpoints. However, thelatter usually does require separate meetings withdifferent class and gender groups. If not, theopinions of only the more powerful would likelyprevail.Even within separate groups certain individuals,with vested interests, may exert pressure overtly orcovertly for the group to choose a score even whenit does not reflect reality. MPA facilitators aresensitized to this possibility during training. In suchsituations, it is advisable to complete the visualanalysis but postpone scoring to a later session41