Neighborhood Upgrading and Shelter Sector Project

The project produced some important insights for neighborhood upgrading interventions to be considered for future project designs. Involving beneficiaries at all stages of planning and implementation of upgrading activities and promoting inclusive community empowerment are key to ensuring pro-poor investments and sustainability, including (i) community control of decision- making over resources and investment choices; (ii) simple and transparent funds flow arrangements with direct transfers to community accounts; (iii) efficient facilitation support, including social facilitators to ensure full community participation, and engineering facilitators to oversee technical quality of civil works; (iv) strong accountability procedures, such as public disclosure of budgets and contracts; (v) community management of funds and procurement matters; and (vi) training for communities in establishing effective mechanisms to operate and maintain new infrastructure. Qualified and experienced community facilitators and sufficient time for community empowerment activities are important to ensure that community members are sufficiently involved in prioritizing their needs, developing investment proposals, and taking decisions.