The Ministry of Water and Environment has developed these guidelines to provide information about the sector conditional grants and guide local governments in the preparation of local government budget estimates for the Water and Environment sector. They provide details of (i ) the national policies for the sector, (ii) the role and mandate of local governments in the sector, (iii ) an overview of central government grants to local governments, (iv) an explanation of how these are allocated to each local government , (v) requirements that local governments must follow when preparing the budget; (vi) guidelines to follow during the planning and reporting on the grant.