This toolkit is a result of the generous involvement of several thousand children and adults from Fiji, Indonesia and Australia, in designing a decentralised water-sensitive infrastructure system, as part of the Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE) Program. They shared their time, knowledge, fears, doubts, hopes and excitement with each other and with teams of researchers and practitioners. Without their thoughts, voices and actions, this toolkit would not be in front of you.

Recommendations are based on quantitative and qualitative research focused on the implementation and impacts of inclusive participatory design activities in RISE. Methods included ethnography and design research undertaken during designing events, as well as surveys and interviews with residents in 12 urban informal settlements in Fiji and Indonesia, as well as with staff members. It was undertaken by RISE and Water for Women team after the design process was finished.



The research was focused on 24 settlements in Makassar (Indonesia) and Suva (Fiji) where water and sanitation infrastructure was designed in a participatory way. They are different in size, position within water catchment, social and cultural characteristics, etc. The toolkit is developed through learning from this context:




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What was the process of making this toolkit like?




Analysing the design process, evaluating its inclusiveness, and distilling this knowledge into a toolkit was a collaborative process in itself. Experts in public health, gender, law, watersensitive cities infrastructure, and participatory design took part in 11 workshops from which the structure and content emerged. The team has learned a lot in this process, especially about the importance of enabling open, emergent processes to reveal the plurality of views and integrate them through design outputs. Rather than creating a fixed framework, the team envisaged this toolkit as a starting point for explorations of diversity within and around themselves.