This process of needs identification described above enables a municipality to clarify specific objectives relating to the poor. Most importantly, it enables poor communities to become directly involved in prioritising objectives. Clearly, a service partnership is not successfully focused on the poor if poor communities and households have not placed priority on the need for that service, and do not prioritise household expenditure on it. Municipal managers who have a clear understanding of objectives are more able to create appropriate solutions than those who are unprepared and led by the availability of solutions (such as private sector investment) rather than by the nature of the problem.
Of course, the definition of objectives is a skill and requires capacity. It is likely that poor people do not express their needs and objectives in a form that all actors understand, and that some municipal officials will not understand the importance of their objectives. Whether directly or through NGOs and other agents, it is the municipality's - not the private sector's - responsibility to ensure that objectives and priorities are properly translated and incorporated into municipal action plans for service delivery.