Module 04: Collecting Information

4.5. What are the underlying issues to keep in mind?

Capacity and resources

Collecting information to facilitate the development of the PPP process requires capacity that may not be readily available in municipalities. It is important that municipal managers keep this in mind and consider the possibility of collaborating with other municipalities to acquire the necessary skills. Municipal managers need to consider the following issues.

◊ What skills exist within the municipality that could be used in the information gathering process?

◊ What are the categories and numbers of staff that will be involved?

◊ Where and how can the municipality acquire the extra capacity it needs?

◊ How will the gap created by staff participating in the information gathering be filled?

◊ Is documentation within the municipality good enough to provide the necessary information?

◊ How will the process be funded? Ideally, the public sector allocates the research money. However, the so-called seed money is often requested as part of the donor support.

Specific poverty-related issues

Apart from collecting information on current and desirable access to the service and willingness and ability to pay for the service, the municipality should also look deeper into specific poverty-related issues. For instance, income and gender disaggregated data, or cast and race disaggregating should be considered in the relevant situations. All this information needs to be collected and included in the subsequent analysis.

End of Module 04

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