This paper describes urban WASH interventions (hardware, hygiene promotion, and institutional support) implemented in the Small Towns WASH Programme (STWP) across 14 towns in Zimbabwe with the associated costing. Key lessons in terms of urban WASH rehabilitation include the need for flexible funding and programme approaches accommodate changes during implementation, and that strong programme governance, multi-stakeholder involvement, and integration of hardware and software are required to contribute to benefits beyond infrastructure rehabilitation alone. Critical recommendations for sustaining the rehabilitated infrastructure and institutional strengthening are presented.

A critical component of community-level efforts to reduce intimate partner violence (IPV) is the meaningful engagement of opinion leaders. This paper assesses the successes, challenges, and processes of change that Indashyikirwa – an IPV prevention programme in Rwanda – encountered while engaging opinion leaders to combat IPV. The paper draws on three rounds of qualitative interviews with 13 opinion leaders, two rounds of interviews with 12 community activists, and two rounds of interviews with six staff members. Thematic analysis was conducted and the data triangulated. The paper offers lessons learnt regarding how to effectively engage opinion leaders for IPV prevention programming.

The 2013–2016 West Africa Ebola Epidemic was and remains the world’s largest outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease. The United States Government (USG) spent $2.7 billion responding to the outbreak, predominantly through the deployment of the US Agency for International Development, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Department of Defense. Each of these USG agencies, as well as several others, wrote substantive post-operation reports, including myriad recommendations for how to improve interdepartmental coordination and collaboration during future disease outbreak responses. However, to date, no effort has been made to compare and contrast these post-operation reports and their respective recommendations, with a view to finding synergies between them. This essay evaluates the various reports in the public domain, and finds that four areas are consistently referenced: the need to clarify roles and responsibilities between USG agencies, reinforce data sharing and surveillance, perform joint planning, and improve communication and coordination with external partners. These four areas therefore represent high-priority policy interventions for ensuring the efficacy and efficiency of the USG’s future interventions in response to critical public health threats.

Multistakeholder financing partnerships are assumed to provide inclusive governance and mobilise private sector resources for sustainable development. Analysing the partnership space created between the board members of ten global financing partnerships allowed us to uncover two key findings. First, despite the narrative of equality in partnerships, donors continue to be privileged in this space. Second, counter to the expectation of the private sector will provide significant additional funding, their financial contribution was relatively small. High-income countries and private actors are thus privileged in decision making, and therefore wield more influence in defining which ideas of development are financed.

Fishers need to feel they are valued partners in fisheries and coastal management. In 2012, the multi-stakeholder participatory action research Group POPA (For Small-Scale Fisheries in Piriápolis) held the First Small-Scale Fisheries Festival in Piriápolis, Uruguay. We investigated the change the Festival produced in the social representation of local fishers and how it relates to fishers’ wellbeing aspirations. Negative values in fishers’ self-perceptions were found. The positive social change triggered by the Festival tackled mainly fishers’ material wellbeing aspirations (boats, fishing gear for better catch and better income). We also discuss how the change proved relevant at different transformative scales.

All disasters are local with important repercussions for national and sometimes for international levels. An effective emergency response requires mobilising local government resources in the fight against disasters, including pandemics. Local governments, being closer to people, are well-positioned to identify local vulnerabilities and design appropriate response actions. This paper reviews relevant literature on the role of local government in the fight against pandemics and identifies two important prerequisites in deploying local governments effectively in fighting against pandemics: the existence of an intergovernmental coordination mechanism, and local government capacity. The research methodology includes a content analysis of qualitative and quantitative information through a literature review and available data in the public domain.

This article uses an urban case from West Bengal, India, to reveal that people lacking socio-economic and cultural capital have marginal access to civic services provided by the municipality. This marginalisation is a product of the municipality’s highly inequitable approach to governance practices, where there is a deliberate aversion to government schemes, infrastructure, and developmental projects aimed at marginal groups. Almost three decades after decentralisation, the town provides no platforms for citizens to participate in local governance mechanisms, and there are no NGOs and community-based organisations present in local governance. As there is no one to voice the concerns of marginalised groups, a gradual trend of marginalisation continues to occur.

Over the past decade, donors have engaged faith-based organisations (FBOs) in health system reforms and health programmes in many sub-Saharan African countries, including Cameroon. Little knowledge is available concerning the types of FBOs that exist in the health sector in Cameroon. This article describes the complex landscape of Christian FBOs operating in Cameroon’s health sector and provides an explanation for that diversity. It reflects on the implications of the use of the “FBO” acronym in Cameroon and argues that the FBO typology discussion is still relevant.

Socio-cultural norms can potentially enhance the adaptive capacities of some groups while constraining the capacities of others. Using household surveys, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews in four communities in the Nkoranza South municipality, Ghana, this article examines how socio-cultural norms influence the climate change adaptation of smallholder farmers. While socio-cultural norms fostered indigenes’ access to farmlands and other communal resources resulting in on-farm diversification, migrants/settlers could not take advantage of climate-resistant cash crops such as cashew due to their limited access to and control of land. Additionally, cultural expectations and roles enhanced women’s non-farm adaptive options compared to men.