Women and Wash in Nepal: Key Issues and Challenges

This report has been jointly prepared by Western Sydney University’s Humanitarian and Development Research Initiative (HADRI) and Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction Centre (NDRC). This report is thus the result of a strong collaboration between long-term organisational partners: HADRI staff and students have been working in Nepal on humanitarian and development issues — including water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)— with NDRC and the University of Kathmandu Nepal for several years, and several Nepal-based scholars are Adjunct Fellows of HADRI. The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of the main WASH issues in Nepal with a specific focus on the experiences of women, to set out gaps in knowledge and areas in need of future attention. It offers a stocktake of current research, programmatic interventions and knowledge gaps on WASH in Nepal. The report also highlights challenges for the future. It is based on a comprehensive literature and policy review as well as field assessments drawn from NDRC. The report firstly sets out the broader context in Nepal with regard to social, political, cultural and environmental practices including those that impact on WASH practices. It also records the progress that has been made in many areas of society in spite of significant challenges such as the 2015 earthquake. A literature review summarises existing knowledge in the WASH-related areas of health, hygiene and sanitation, noting the variances due to gender, caste, ethnicity, economic status and location. the report then reviews access to water, paying particular attention to gender, and participation in programme and policy design. A case-study approach illustrates how these WASH-related issues are experienced at the local level in four districts in Nepal, with a policy review setting out the major stages in WASH policy design and implementation since the 1970s. The report concludes by setting out gaps in knowledge and critical areas for future action