Authors: D. Satterthwaite; G. McGranahan; D. Mitlin
Publisher: Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council , 2005

This booklet presents a number of community-led initiatives to improve and extend provision for water and sanitation to low-income urban households and discusses their relevance for meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG)
target for water and sanitation.At the core of most initiatives described in this booklet is the possibility for urban poor groups and their organizations to influence what is done and to be involved in doing it. An analysis of these initiatives demonstrates that:

The uptake of mobile phones on the African continent continues with growth rates in excess of 100% over the past twelve months (Source MTN 'Yello corporate publication, 2008). This is happening while technologies that link people across space and time are becoming ubiquitous and mobile telephony is the preferred means of telecommunication. The result is a narrowing of the technological gap between the developed and developing world. Rates of ownership, even among the poorest, is surprisingly high and while estimates vary, there were already more than 100 million connected handsets in Africa in 2005.