Water and other urban infrastructure and services / Urban water supply

Following the First and the Second Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Projects (the earlier projects), the Third Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project (the project) will support the ongoing efforts of the Government of Nepal (the government) to further improve water supply and sanitation service delivery in small towns in Nepal. The PPTA will leverage the experience gained from the earlier projects, and incorporate lessons learned to prepare for the project. The PPTA will assist the government in amending the Development Plan, preparing cost estimates and financing plan and the feasibility studies of the sample subprojects, with a special focus on structuring and refining the project design, including rationale, modality, appraisal, financing, implementation and institutional arrangements, and developing eligibility and evaluation criteria for future subproject selection in close consultation with the government and ADB. Upon finalizing the project modality, the PPTA will prepare the project, following ADB's due diligence requirements.

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Stakeholder participation and communication plan and strategy will be formulated at the initial design stage. The national social safeguard and resettlement specialists under the PPTA will be based in the field office for the sample subproject towns to ensure timely attention to issues concerning participation. For the remaining subproject towns, loan consultant will ensure the compliance with the stakeholder participation and communication plan and strategy by providing quarterly updates to ADB in the progress report.

The main stakeholders of the project are small town residents, local business communities, users' committees, government officials, civil society organizations and development partners. The project design is finalized through a process that involves timely consultation between government and development partners, socio-economic surveys for the residents and business communities and communications with users' committees to determine feasibility of project design.

The PPTA will verify the key civil society organizations in the project area and the level of participation. Information dissemination is envisaged at the town level through billboards, posters and newsletters, where applicable. General orientation and targeted consultation seminars will be held. The beneficiaries will collaborate through the WUSCs to make contributions to establishing the infrastructure through a demand-driven participatory approach.

The project is to provide water supply services in the subproject area. Therefore, determination of the subproject area is important as not to exclude the poor, women-headed and minority households from access to improved services. Consultation with the poor and excluded can be engaged through focus group discussion, interviews and local meetings and can be separately arranged for separate focus groups to maintain appropriate level of sensitivity.