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The dismal situation of water supply and sanitation in many developing countries including Pakistan is increasingly blamed on unrealistic policy, ineffective implementation and lack of local participation. This paper aims to understand Pakistan's current and proposed water supply and sanitation institutions in the light of historical and ongoing practices and perceptions of relevant actors. The relevant institutions of the governmenl. iheir serviceprovision and policy formulation and implementation processes were examined and compared with the field data. An actor-oriented approach, open-ended interviews, group discussions with relevant actors and participant observation were used for data collection. Wide gaps were found between local people's needs, desires and expectations and government policies and services, between people's practices and historical and proposed institutions, and between local people's and policy-makers' understanding of the issues. The study warrants ihe formulation of realistic and people-centred water supply and sanitation institutions and engaging local actors in ihc proces.ses. Along with regulatory mechanisms, the findings argue for the use of cognitive and normativiinstruments in the implementation of policies while tailor-making solutions to local culture, working together with local actors, rather than imposing solutions on them.

Community-oriented policing (COP) as a model has found widespread acceptance throughout the world both in developed and developing countries. Similarly, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been embraced by many developed countries to augment COP initiatives. However, very little is known about the application of ICTs in COP in developing countries, particularly South Asia. In this article, we review the current ICT-based COP initiatives by focusing on some of the selected projects from developed countries and South Asia. The paper has used COP in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province of Pakistan as a case. While meaningful insights can be derived through learning from the experiences of developed countries, we highlight some major issues and challenges that are likely to be faced while implementing ICT based COP in South Asia. Moreover, we provide an overview of some exciting opportunities that arise as a result of embracing ICTs to enhance COP efforts for building trusting community-police relations and hence improving human security in the region.