Fields of action
Document Actions
In the South
PROTOS encourages the local population to join hands and to find solutions for their water-related problems themselves.
Thereby, work is carried out simultaneously at 4 levels:
- Actions in the field: every year more than 100,000 people get (a better) access to water and/or sanitation. This directly improves their health, food security, and socio-economic situation.
- Training and organisation: water committees, farmers’ organisations, NGO’s, local authorities, and governmental services are formed and reinforced. They maintain the water projects, and develop new ones.
- Cooperation and planning: all actors involved in local development are encouraged to cooperate more closely, to distribute tasks and responsibilities well, and to gear the planning to one another. In this way, a true local development dynamics are born. PROTOS methodologically supports these processes.
- “Globalisation”: the experiences with the actions in the field serve to point out a number of difficulties at the national and even international level. As such, PROTOS stands up for a stronger role for local authorities and communities, and for the importance of the multi-stakeholder approach. PROTOS also accuses international solidarity’s gross underfinancing of the water sector.
In the North
Via educational programmes and awareness raising, PROTOS contributes to a larger international solidarity with all the people who do not have (sufficient) access to safe water. Moreover, PROTOS sets up activities to give water a higher priority on the political agenda. PROTOS also aims at developing contacts between all who are active in the field of water, both in the North and the South.
To all actors in Belgium who care about the water issue in the South, PROTOS wishes to be a reference through:
- A documentational service: PROTOS makes available specialised documentation on the technical, social, and organisational aspects of water.
- A question-and-answer service: members of staff give answers to specific technical and/or organisational questions.
- A study service: on behalf of organisations from the South as well as from the North, PROTOS carries out assessment studies and advisory tasks within its field of specialisation.
- Publications: PROTOS produces publications about different aspects of the water issue and makes them available to third parties.
