The Mozambican institutions are not used to establishing dialogue particularly between public and private institutions and between themselves and the communities. In order to institutionalize the dialogue and connect the parties involved in urban water management and delivery, a Water and Sanitation working group was set up with permanent members being representatives of the above-mentioned institutions (MWSD, CRA, FIPAG, CARE, AdeM and community representatives). The working group facilitated meetings to introduce PPP concept and explain the new PPP pilot project as preparation of the project implementation. In addition to meetings between these core stakeholders, awareness raising campaigns took place through youth dance and theatre to promote environmental improvements and behavioral change in relation to water and sanitation, and awareness on the new models of standpipe community management was created to support operators and water committees.
Several meetings were undertaken in Maputo and Matola. In Maputo for example the meetings were held with administrators of the municipal districts number 2, 3 and 6 and with representatives of the communities from the selected neighborhoods in those municipal districts. In Matola Municipality, for example, there was a meeting with more than 50 people. This meeting included three members of the Municipal Council, elements of the task force of the Municipal Council, and chiefs of the target neighborhoods of Matola Gare, Ndlavela, Kongolote and Bunhiça. Important was the participation of municipal district representatives who were in charge of development issues in targeted neighborhoods, as well as the participation of some standpipe operators. The meeting was aimed at presenting the new model of standpipe management as a way of promoting the idea of PPP and preparing the following steps to create safe bases for the implementation phase. The main concerns presented during the meetings were related to questions of how to link the new management model with neighborhoods that have different systems, such as AFRIDEV built by the Rural Water Program in response to the floods in 2000, which affected many people.
Under this project in August 2002 the model for standpipe management was produced by the Standpipe Management Working Group (SMWG), which defined roles and responsibilities, including drafting contracts for the operation of standpipes and calculating water fee options. The launch in 2002 included representations from the participating cities and was followed by an action plan for the pilot project implementation in 13 neighborhoods of Maputo and Matola.
As mentioned above, the community had the responsibility to select standpipe operators and representatives for the community water committee. The municipalities on the other hand promoted and enabled small businesses by using existing law to subcontract individual standpipe operators. AdeM was responsible for the rehabilitating of standpipes in the target areas for the pilot project, for which the investment was co-coordinated by FIPAG. CARE was the overall project manager, who managed the IPG funding. It was also crucial in establishing with its partners the Water and Sanitation Working Group.
Although the community showed high satisfaction with the standpipes operation, the process was not without difficulties. Under the heading of Technical issues already some constraints were mentioned which influenced the project's process. In addition it's important to mention that the prioritization of CRA to install their local offices in two northern cities rather than establish local water offices in Maputo and Matola, exacerbated the difficulties in the process. In this climate of uncertainty CARE moved ahead to create Water Committees and to ensure that all standpipes had operators with community approval, as well as that there was a general awareness about the initiation of the new model of standpipe management. However the actions only had a limited impact because it was not possible to go ahead with full capacity building of the community on standpipe management while the necessary institutions were not yet in place and the standpipes were still performing poorly and were in bad technical condition.