□ Appropriate technologies

The use of appropriate technologies (such as condominial systems or on-site sanitation) has developed as a feasible way of improving services in poor areas. Despite some resistance, a few municipalities and private operators are now realising that if they are to create partnership arrangements that meet the needs of the poor, they too will have to build on previous experience with alternative technologies and move away from their preferred high levels of services. They are recognising they need to look toward solutions driven by the availability of local resources and capacity, and appropriate to the physical conditions. The technical discussion is beyond the scope of this sourcebook, but municipalities are encouraged to explore appropriate technologies developed in their own contexts and to seek support from organisations that have focused on developing pro-poor solutions through alternative, appropriate technologies.6

Condominial network designs for water and sewerage services, for instance, were pioneered in Brazil during the 1980s. They involve routing water and sewerage networks across pavements and yards instead of down the middle of streets. What effectively happens is that instead of giving each individual house a connection to the trunk line, each block of houses has a single connection to the trunk line (as if the block were an apartment building that had been laid on its side). For a number of reasons, this approach substantially reduces the cost of network expansion. First, there is a saving in the length of network required to serve a given number of houses, because it is no longer necessary to run a pipe from the middle of the street into each dwelling. Second, there is a reduction in the diameter of pipe needed. Third, pipes can be buried at a shallower depth because there is no need to protect them from the weight of passing vehicles.

A number of examples point towards the types of service options envisaged in various services:

• The use of condominial water and sanitation networks in El Alto reduced system costs and enabled the operator to meet expansion targets. An engineering solution was adopted to reduce the length, diameter and depth of the network required by routing distribution pipes across pavements and backyards (see Box 7.6).

• In Lima, the public sector operator facilitated a system of supplying water to peri-urban areas by providing bulk water through water tankers delivered to purpose-built reservoirs on steep hillsides. The existing informal (and exploitative) tanker drivers were treated as an asset in the clean water programme initiative - an asset to be integrated and regularised into the partnership - rather than being dismissed and seeing the service undermined (see Box 6.8).

• In the Billy Hattingh solid waste initiative in South Africa, a network of small-scale entrepreneurs working with tractor/trailers has provided waste collection services in many low-income urban areas (see Box 6.9).

Promoting service options is a critical aspect of focusing the content of the partnership framework on the poor. The terms 'service option' and 'levels of service' imply decision-making by the supplier of the service. If a PPP is to become focused on bringing benefits to the poor, the conceptualisation needs to be targeted at people, not at the service itself, and the goal should be to provide service options to meet service needs.