Transformative technical advice

Throughout our history of working with local partner organisations, networks and social movements, we have learned and gained greatly from our experience in both our cooperation projects and our awareness-raising and advocacy campaigns.

That is why we make our experience available to other organisations, entities and administrations in the global South and North, recognising inequalities, resistance and peripheries around the world through technical advice.

At ISF, we understand technical advice as a space for collective work, where the technical aspect must necessarily be accompanied by the social aspect, in a space for dialogue, mutual learning and social transformation. It is not just a question of providing specialised knowledge, but of putting our experience at the service of human rights and global justice.

We accompany advisory services in all phases of a project: from identification and formulation to management, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. We do so by following a clear human rights approach, taking care of the processes, with a feminist perspective, committing to comprehensive participation that takes into account all voices and their needs, putting people, territories and their knowledge at the centre.

Specifically, advisory services may include:

  • Design, diagnosis, identification
  • Support for the development of formulations
  • Support for processes in basic services management and territorial planning.
  • Supervision and monitoring of works with environmental and social justice criteria.
  • Technical training and capacity building in face-to-face and virtual formats.
  • Support for the development of project formulations
  • Support for project justification and accountability to funders.
  • External evaluations

Our interdisciplinary team is made up of people with diverse backgrounds and experiences—engineers, environmentalists, educators, communicators, and other professionals—who work in partnership with our colleagues, sharing knowledge and building solutions tailored to each context.

Areas of technical and social advice

Water and sanitation

We promote the human right to water and sanitation as a central pillar of social and environmental justice.

We accompany processes of community-based, public and feminist management of water and sanitation services, fostering community sovereignty over the commons and shared responsibility with public administrations. Our technical advisory work integrates local and scientific knowledge, climate resilience, and the strengthening of organizations that defend territory and the right to live in dignified conditions.

Technical, social and political advisory on water

Thanks to our trajectory as Engineering Without Borders in the defence and guarantee of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation (HRWS), in the promotion of public and democratic management, and in networking at local, state, European and international levels, we offer specialised services in advisory work, analysis and political advocacy in the field of water.

From a technical, social and political perspective, we accompany public administrations, organisations and territorial actors seeking to move towards fairer, more transparent management models grounded in human rights.

Within this framework, our water and sanitation advisory work is structured around the following areas:

We work by combining technical advisory, political advocacy and the strengthening of local actors, adapting each process to its context and to the needs of the territory.

  • Promotion of and support for territorial actors interested in public and community-based water management.
  • Design, creation and consolidation of governance models and participation mechanisms, such as Citizen Water Observatories or water planning tables.
  • Development of specialised studies, including:
  • Support to local administrations in the drafting and adoption of municipal ordinances for the reuse of greywater and rainwater.
  • Design and organisation of technical, political and social debates, seminars and public events, such as:
  • Identification of key actors and construction of strategic alliances in the field of public and community-based water management, in order to establish alliances and partnerships both in Catalonia and internationally.

An example of accompaniment in water and sanitation in São Tomé and Príncipe

This approach takes shape through long-term advisory processes, adapted to each context and built jointly with local actors. One such example is the technical advisory carried out on the island of Príncipe (São Tomé and Príncipe), in collaboration with the Menorcan Fund for Cooperation and the Regional Government of Príncipe.

The accompaniment included an initial phase of participatory social diagnosis of water and sanitation with a gender perspective, involving women, young people and rural communities in the definition of sustainable solutions.

Building on this initial work, ESF continues to accompany the process towards water governance in the territory, focusing on strengthening local teams, restoring rural systems and building institutional alliances that allow steady progress towards participatory water planning, with social oversight and oriented towards the right to water for all.

Urban habitat and services

We promote collective urban and territorial improvement processes that guarantee the right to housing, participatory planning and the protection of common spaces and public services against commercialisation. Our advisory services combine technical and social tools to build inclusive, resilient and democratic cities and communities, in collaboration with neighbourhood movements and local administrations. We prioritise solutions based on nature, sustainable design and collective governance of services, where communities take ownership of their management collectively and communally.

For example, in Paraguay, we have collaborated with WWF and CAMSAT on the project ‘Design and implementation of nature-based solutions to improve the resilience of communities and ecosystems in the Bañados de Tacumbú, in the face of the impacts of climate change in Paraguay’, funded by WWF under the Amplifying Voices for Just Climate Action programme.

The city of Asunción, located about 70 metres above sea level, has areas at high risk of flooding, such as the Bañados de Tacumbú, on the coastal strip. The project has included an assessment of socio-environmental needs and problems, as well as the design of nature-based solutions to strengthen community and ecosystem resilience to the impacts of climate change, with technical advice from ISF.

In the following phases, we promoted community support so that the Bañados de Tacumbú community itself could prioritise the most appropriate solutions to environmental and climate challenges. This participatory process culminated in the launch of pilot tests of sustainable technologies, such as rainwater harvesting from rooftops, composting, urban gardens, community spaces and biodigesters.

Energy and environment

We promote a fair and eco-social energy transition that puts technology at the service of life rather than economic profit. We support communities in environmental management and land protection, connecting food sovereignty, social economy and climate justice.

We promote appropriate, open and sustainable technologies, designed jointly with the people and organisations that use them, integrating gender, care and sustainability perspectives at every step.

Among our international advisory projects, one of the most notable is the one carried out in Inhambane (Mozambique), in collaboration with the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation (ACCD) and the provincial authorities of Inhambane, to improve water and energy supply in three health centres in the district of Massinga (Inhambane, Mozambique). The aim of the project was to improve water and energy supply conditions in three health centres in the district of Massinga, strengthening sustainability through training in preventive maintenance at the local level. To achieve this, ISF worked closely with the Inhambane Provincial Health Directorate (DPSI), the main partner in the intervention, and with other provincial technical institutions to ensure the coordination and quality of the works.

Would you like to work with us?

If your organisation, administration or collective wants to promote transformation processes with a technical, social and feminist perspective, please contact us at projectes@esf-cat.org

We will be delighted to listen to you and work with you to develop the advisory proposal that best suits your needs and context.