THIS BOOK IS a guide for policymakers, planners and engineers. It is aimed at officials of donor/lending agencies and their partners in national and state level government ministries and departments who propose to identify programmes for improving services for
the poor in towns and cities.

he document is composed of six different booklets related to the subject as follows:
- Guiding Principles presents an overview of principles and offers guidance for the development of an action planning approach to improve services for the urban poor within a policy context which supports administrative decentralization and the involvement of users in the planning process.
- Working With Partners reviews possible partnering arrangements, the strengths and weaknesses of different institutional options for local programme management and the institutional constraints to the development of an action planning approach to improve services for the urban poor. It presents genuine partnerships between NGOs, government institutions and user groups, involving long-term commitment, equal status in decision-making and an element of shared risk.
- Action Planning Guidelines proposes a framework for action planning to develop local neighbourhood plans and area service plans for networked infrastructure which focuses on the importance of linking these together through consensus-building. The purpose is to lead to action which improves services for the urban poor.
- Technical Guidelines provides detailed planning and design guidelines which cover different technical options for service improvements to urban poor areas, including “handy tips” for construction and maintenance.
- From Action Plan to Implementation provides guidance on how to take the local action plans forward to the stage of implementing service improvement at the field level. It focuses on the development and use of administrative procedures for technical and financial approval, and the different options for procurement and contracting in order to deal with the potentially very large number of small improvement works which will arise.
- Operation and Maintenance presents different strategies for managing the operation and maintenance of services and considers how these can be applied to produce detailed plans for improvements at the neighbourhood, ward and municipal levels.