Citizen Forum Meeting - Ajmer

Inclusive urban development brings the citizens to the table - recognizing their resilience and capacity to innovate and improve their services and communities. When citizens come forward to engage and participate in the planning and monitoring of services, the results are sustainable. Citizens need to engage actively with various authorities and planning processes to achieve the goal of participatory sanitation that is inclusive. The citizen forum in Ajmer city aims to participate actively in sanitation planning, monitoring ongoing interventions and most importantly initiate members’ actions in their own capacity as far as possible. The citizen forum aims to bring together all stakeholders from the city to discuss and get activated for the inclusive sanitation services in the city.  In its first meeting, a roadmap for achieving zero waste city was discussed. Citizens came forward to initiate participatory SWM in their wards with cooperation from ward councilors and municipal corporation.  

In its second meeting, the citizen forum deliberated and formulated action plans on the following:

• Citizen monitoring framework: A core group will work on this monitoring framework in their respective areas and will share the experiences with all members during subsequent meetings.
• Safe city campaign:  Safety is the concern for all citizens and especially the safety of women and girls in the city.  The citizen forum will discuss the strategies and their role in making the city safer for all
• Decentralized SWM in the city:  Following up with the zero waste city roadmap, the forum will look for possibilities of participatory SWM in market areas and wards.