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News

In this section Skat announces regularly news about the organisation, projects and initiatives.

Are you interested in an regular update on news and events? Please subscribe to the Skat newsletter which informs you about three-times a year.

 

New Publication: After the Tsunami - Sustainable Building Guidelines 25.02.2008

UNEP commissioned Skat to prepare a manual on sustainable reconstruction, in particular in the context of Tsunami and other natural disasters.

AGUASAN Workshop Report 2007 Published 13.02.2008

Sustainable and effective decentralised W&S services need not only institutional, organisational and human resources capacity building at local level, but also a functional financial mechanism, and a clear and appropriate allocation of roles and responsibilities.

On 18 - 22 June 2007, the 23rd AGUASAN workshop took place in Gwatt (Switzerland). The presentations, discussions, learnings, and results are summarised in a workshop report.

During five days, 46 development professionals from all over the world delved into the issue topic of “Opportunities and Challenges for the Water and Sanitation Sector in a Decentralised Context” and explored how shifting of power, competen­cies, responsibilities and resources from the central government to local levels particularly affects the way water supply and sanitation (W&S) issues are dealt with.

Looking at four topic cases dealing with decentralised models for service delivery and an analy­sis by a concept working group, the workshop brought up several findings: the W&S sector needs to be flexible to respond to the dynamic decen­tralisation processes, which includes a lobbying and negotiation process amongst the players, and to find its niche. Decision-making power, institutional capacity, fiscal and technical resources for services delivery and their management have to be devolved concommitantly and in an adequate way. In addition, roles and responsibilities in the sector should be devolved to the lowest appropriate and competent level. And finally, an effective decentralisation process should be part of a broader governance and democratisation reform, and neither an isolated nor a universal remedy to W&S sector needs.

The report can be downloaded or ordered in the publications section of the Skat website.

KM4D Journal - New issue online - capacity building for networking 04.10.2006

With great pleasure we announce that the September 2006 issue of the KMD Journal on the subject of 'Capacity building for networking' is now online:

 http://www.km4dev.org/journal/index.php/km4dj/issue/current

The catalyser for this issue on capacity building for networking was a workshop on the 'Management of international networks for knowledge sharing', organised by Skat and Helvetas on the 25-28 April 2006 in St. Gallen (Switzerland). Two contributions ensuing from this workshop can also be found in this special issue that comprises articles and case studies ranging from analysis of what kind of capacity building is needed, to insights in capacity building programmes for networking from a grassroots perspective, as well as from the perspective of networking practitioners.

We hope you will enjoy reading this issue and find some insights that inspire you in your work.
 
The Guest Editors
Urs Karl Egger, Georg Buchholz, and Marc Steinlin
together with Chief Editor Lucie Lamoureux

Skat participated in the 2006 Run of St.Galler Altstadtlauf 03.10.2006

Skat running team