Grassroots social resistance to neoliberal reforms of urban water and sanitation has taken a dynamic trajectory in the past decade, especially in Latin America. The thesis' proposition is that these struggles have undergone qualitative changes. Their previously defensive strategies are developing into propositional strategies that increasingly focus on public and community alternatives to privatisation. This politicisation and movementisation of urban WATSAN is hardly discussed by academic literature, despite it being an emerging opportunity for propublic sector reform. Thus, the inquiry concerns the role of social movements in the exploration of alternatives to privatisation and looks at transnational networks and localnational struggles. This thesis employs critical ethnographic, participant research methodology. Empirical research took place from 2004 to 2008 and developed an emergent practice of politicised social movement research. As conceptual framework, the role of social movement in urban water and sanitation is considered as a process of radical reformism and social appropriation. On this basis, the global water justice movement's emergent discursive frame is analysed and found to centre on the democratisation of public water. By means of a comparative typology theory I then analyse local and national-level social struggles and develop the concept of pro-public challenge. Two case studies further elaborate on this type of political process of sector reform. These are the Uruguayan sector reform after a national referendum in 2004; and the case of Peru, where the embedded case of the city of Huancayo developed a public-public partnership as alternative to a planned water utility privatisation. The thesis develops a meso-level qualitative analysis of the political process of movementisation of sector reform in form of matrices, contingent pathways and contingent generalisations. The central finding is that social movements at transnational and local level develop new roles in pro-public sector reform. Despite substantive impacts, their power to implement alternative paths of development was found to be limited. They run the risk of not meeting all the resulting new challenges posed by politicised participation in sector reform, failing to develop adequate strategies, resources, organisational capacity and expert knowledge.

A society´s health depends on the access to proper and hygiene sanitation. Half of the population still do not have access to proper sanitation in Nepal; therefore government and non-government organizations are facilitating sanitation access to all the population. Decades ago, open defecation and pit latrines toilet were the only options as sanitation system to the people. But now, various types of toilets system known as dry toilets, septic tanks, centralized sewerage system and biogas integrated toilets are available. Therefore, existing toilet system in rural areas of Nepal needs to be evaluated with respect to environment and long term sustainability. Aim of this study is to find the appropriate toilet system for rural areas of Nepal. This study also discusses how that appropriate toilet system can be promoted based on current scenarios from government level to local level. Generic Multi-Attribute Analysis (GMAA) is used as a decision support tools to evaluate available various toilet alternatives. For which a rural area from Nepal is chosen as study area. GMAA helps in evaluating all the toilet system based on social, technological, environmental and economical aspects. Interpretation between the toilet systems can be made easily with the help of GMAA results. Field questionnaire survey was also carried out in the study area to know user´s understanding of toilet alternatives. Every toilet systems have pro and cons based on different social, technological, environmental and economical aspects. It was found that pit latrines toilet systems are mostly practiced in the rural areas of Nepal. User prefers pit latrines because of its social accepted character and technologically easy in using it. Biogas integrated toilet system came as optimal toilet system though not accessible to all household. It was found that urine and faeces separating toilets are environmentally and economically beneficial. The thesis concludes that appropriate toilet system which is sustainable must be promoted while increasing toilet coverage in Nepal. Urine and faeces separating toilet is found to be appropriate and need to be incorporated in the government goal of increasing toilet coverage.