Welcome!
Thank you for reviewing and providing feedback on our demonstration of a Community Choices Tool in the water, sanitation, hygiene (WASH) sector. The goal of the Community Choices Tool is to give communities, local and country governments, NGOs, and practitioners access to the wealth of information on water, sanitation, and hygiene technologies and financing approaches in a single source decision-making support tool. The goal of this mock-up is to demonstrate what a Community Choices Tool could do, and to get feedback to aid in development of the tool.
Instead of having to read through numerous books, technical support documents, and web pages, the Community Choices Tool offers the opportunity for a non-expert user to
- Input a series of responses to questions on community, cultural, economic and environmental context
- Get a set of strategies or solutions that might work to meet WASH needs
- For each solution, get the information on building, maintainance, finance, and community education
- Connect with local resources for additional support
To demonstrate what the Community Choices Tool might look like and a few of the potential capabilities, we have developed a prototype on this website. The prototype has:
- Only sanitation technologies and solutions – the full tool will provide integrated solutions for the entire WASH sector
- A limited number of questions which touch on some environmental, cultural, and financial aspects – the full tool would ask more questions in the local language, esp. questions appropriate to local context, terminology, etc.
- There are only four static technology/approach solutions outlined here. The full tool will include a greater number of technologies and approaches
The goal of this mock-up is to be a target to obtain feedback on what is most needed in terms of substance, format, output, and dissemination of an ideal Community Choices Tool. The overall development of the tool is envisioned to be a three-year, multi-regional, multi-organization global effort, and the tool will be built from the ground up and iteratively with local organizations. The development and strengthening of regional support centers to support community use of the tool is a critical part of this, as is translation into multiple languages, and online, DVD-ROM and hardcopy dissemination. For more information and background research on this effort please visit http://www.pacinst.org/reports/WASH_tool.
How to Use the Site
- Register to use the site. Check your email inbox (and spam folder) for your password.
- Log in. Enter a location name (e.g. Oakland), and click on the entered location to begin answering the questions. Once the location name appears as hyperlinked text, click on the location name to begin using the tool.
- You will be presented with questions one by one. To advance to the next question click the ‘Next’ button, to return to a previous question click the ‘Back’ button.
- Once you’ve finished answering all the questions, click ‘Calculate’. A ranked list of recommended solutions will appear as hyperlinked text; click on each solution to get more information about each.
- Fill out the survey at the end of your review. On the Recommended Solutions page, click on ‘Please Send Feedback’.
Thank you,
Pacific Institute Community Choices Tool Team
Meena Palaniappan, Project Director
Misha Hutchings, Research Associate
Matthew Heberger, Programmer
P.S. When you’re done, please provide your feedback, including comments, questions, and suggestions on how to make this better. You can provide your feedback through the feedback page, or sending an email message to any of the team members (names linked to email addresses above).