This report has been produced as part of the Wastewater Agriculture and Sanitation for Poverty Alleviation in Asia (WASPA Asia) project, funded by the European Commission under its Asia Pro Eco II Program. The objective of the project is to improve the livelihoods of urban and periurban farmers who are using wastewater in agriculture; and the communities who are responsible for producing the wastewater or consuming the agricultural produce. To do this a holistic approach and sustainable solutions are required along the whole chain of wastewater production and use; from improved sanitation to contaminant reduction, waste treatment, disposal, safe use in agriculture and promotion of hygiene behavior. At the same time a change of practice is required to integrate wastewater planning into urban water resource management, simultaneously applying technical solutions for wastewater treatment and disposal and a range of preventive measures to mitigate health risks in the short term.

The WASPA Asia project aims to achieve this by involving a wide range of stakeholders (Annex I) in developing and testing solutions for sanitation and decentralized wastewater management, and for mitigation of health risks from wastewater use in agriculture. In this process Learning Alliances are perceived to be the key to engaging these stakeholders and to achieving the overall objective of the work. Learning Alliances are defined by Moriarty et al.(2005, draft) as a “series of connected structured platforms at different institutional levels, designed to break down barriers to both horizontal and vertical information