This booklet focuses on the role of local, community-driven schemes in directly addressing the needs of the unserved or ill-served in urban areas. It: describes initiatives that improved and extended provision for water an sanitation as a result of changes in approach by local governments and civil society organizations; shows how local initiatives not normally considered part of 'water and sanitation' can have great relevance for improving and extending provision -especially squatter upgrading schemes, initiatives to provide land for new housing and measures to increase the availability of loans to support household and community investments in better housing; discusses a key underpinning of these successes - the partnerships offered to local government by organizations of the urban poor - and the tools and methods used; and discusses the 'local' constraints to improving and extending provision for water and sanitation and how these can be addressed.
