Gender, Social Capital and Collective Action: A gender perspective on collective sustainability of water resource governance in west Nepal

In Nepal, as in other South Asian countries, water resource development is often considered to be a primarily technological challenge, requiring engineered solutions. Many years of advocacy for gender equality in water management - drawing attention to the need for local institutional changes has shifted this outlook. Thus, today women’s participation in water user associations (WUA) is encouraged and identified to be key in enabling gender equality, a more equal participation in water governance, and a more equal share of water infrastructure and services. Nonetheless, these well intention efforts tend to overlook complex social dynamics in rural areas, which influence the effectiveness of women’s participation. If initiatives to engaging women are to succeed in promoting gender equality, they must be considered in the light of the wider social and political contexts – of what makes for a community, a society

Transformative engagements with gender relations in agriculture and water governance

Despite frequent calls for transformative approaches for engaging in agrarian change and water governance, we observe little change in everyday development and research praxis. Empirical studies on transformative engagements with gender relations among smallscale or tenant farmers and water user groups are particularly rare. We explore transformative engagements through an approach based on critical pedagogy (Freire, 1996) and transformative practice (Leder, 2018). We examine opportunities to promote empathy and critical consciousness on gender norms, roles and relations in agriculture and resource management. We developed and piloted an innovative “Participatory Gender Training for Community Groups” as part of two internationally funded water security projects. The training consists of three activities and three discussions to reflect on gender roles in families, communities and agriculture, to discuss the gendered division of labour and changing gender relations over time and space, and to create empathy and resolve conflicts through a bargaining role play with switched genders. The approach was implemented in twelve villages across four districts in Nepal and India (Bihar, West Bengal). Our results show how the training methods can provide an open space to discuss local gender roles within households, agriculture and natural resource management. Discussing own gender norms promotes critical consciousness that gender norms are socially constructed and change with age, class, caste and material and structural constraints such as limited access to water and land. The activities stimulated enthusiasm and inspiration to reflect on possible change towards more equal labor division and empathy towards those with weaker bargaining power. Facilitators have the most important role in transformative engagements and need to be trained to reinterpret training principles in local contexts, and to apply facilitation skills to focus on transforming rather than reproducing gender norms. We argue that the gender training methods can initiate transformative practice with the gender-water-agriculture nexus by raising critical consciousness of farmers, community mobilisers, and project staff on possibilities of social change “in situ”

Masculinities and hydropower in India:A feminist political ecology perspective

Mainstreaming gender in water governance through "how to do gender" toolkits has long been a development focus. It has been widely argued that such toolkits simplify the complex, nuanced realities of inequalities by gender in relation to water and fail to pay attention to the fact that the proposed users of such gender-water toolkits, i.e. mostly male water sector professionals, lack the skills, motivation and/or incentives to apply these toolkits in their everyday work. We adopt a feminist political ecology lens to analyse some of the barriers to reduce social inequalities in the management of global commons such as international rivers. Our findings highlight the leap of faith made in the belief that gender toolkits, as they exist, will filter through layers of a predominantly masculine institutional culture to enable change in ground realities of complex inequalities by gender. Analysing the everyday workings of two hydropower development organisations in India, we show how organisational structures demonstrate a blatant culture of masculinity. These two organisations, like many others, are sites where hierarchies and inequalities based on gender are produced, performed and reproduced. This performance of masculinity promotes and rewards a culture of technical pride in re-shaping nature, abiding by and maintaining hierarchy and demonstrating physical strength and emotional hardiness. In such a setting, paying attention to vulnerabilities, inequalities and disparities are incompatible objectives

Gender and socially inclusive WASH in Nepal: moving beyond “technical fixes”

The enactment of a new Constitution in 2015 in Nepal marked a shift to a representative system of federal governance. Earlier in 2002, the country's Tenth Five Year Plan had committed to a core focus on gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) in national policies and governance. How do these two strategic shifts in policy align in the case of WASH projects in rural Nepal? Applying a feminist political lens, we review the implementation of WASH initiatives in two rural districts to show that deep-rooted intersectional complexities of caste, class, and gender prevent inclusive WASH outcomes. Our findings show that the policy framing for gender equitable and socially inclusive outcomes have not impacted the WASH sector, where interventions continue as essentially technical interventions. While there has been significant increase in the number of women representatives in local governance structures since 2017, systemic, informal power relationship by caste, ethnicity and gender entrenched across institutional structures and cultures persist and continue to shape unequal gender-power dynamics. This is yet another example that shows that transformative change requires more than just affirmative policies

Scoping study: Capacities and needs for strengthening water-energy-food-environment (WEFE) nexus approaches in Nepal

This report presents the results of a scoping study conducted between April and June 2022 in Nepal as part of the CGIAR NEXUS Gains Initiative. The study aims to inform and offer a baseline for the development of a water - energy - food - environment (WEFE) nexus capacity strengthening strategy for the Initiative in Nepal, which will serve as a hub for NEXUS Gains capacity strengthening activities in the sub-region. The study sheds light on the current status of capacities to develop and implement nexus solutions among key Nepali actors in the water, energy, forestry, biodiversity and agriculture sectors, and on the enabling environment for pursuing such integrated solutions. The assessment draws attention to equity and inclusion as critical dimensions of WEFE nexus approaches, and identifies constraints and strategies to strengthen the capacities, leadership, and influence of women WEFE actors

Exploring Migration and Disaster Nexus

The nexus between migration and disaster has commonly been referred to in previous researches. In particular, previous studies often describe migration as a coping strategy for climate and water-induced disasters (WID). Yet, limited studies have explored the role of migration in triggering disaster and intensifying the risk and exposure of communities to such events. Considering this research gap, this study aims to assess the linkage between internal and external migration and disaster events. Employing qualitative research methods and taking the Extended East Rapti River Watershed located in Chitwan and Makwanpur districts of Nepal as a case, this study indicates that unmanaged internal migration in the study area has increased the prospects of WID and its risk in the region. These instances were mainly due to over-exploitation of resources and change in land-use practices in the Chure region and Tarai. Likewise, haphazard growth of urban and semi-urban areas, expansion of settlements in hazardous areas, and an increase in built-up areas in the watershed have further contributed to an increase in incidences of WID as well as the risk, exposure, and vulnerability of the residents to such events. The research also reveals that poor governance to manage the process of migration and urbanization is largely responsible for this phenomenon than the migrants alone. Finally, this article suggests not undermining the role of different types of migration and their governance while studying the migration-disaster nexus

The Effects of Migration on Livelihoods, Land Management, and Vulnerability to Natural Disasters in the Harpan Watershed in Western Nepal

Migration is increasing in the middle hills of Nepal, and it has diverse consequences for the people remaining behind, their livelihoods, and the way they manage their land. This study explored the complex and interrelated effects of migration on land and people in the Harpan watershed, Kaski District, western Nepal. Surveys and focus group discussions were used to explore the reasons for decisions on land management and migration. In addition, remote sensing and fieldwork were used to map the extent of land abandonment. Our study found that almost three quarters of the households have at least 1 migrant member receiving on average US$ 206 per month in remittances. Remittances were used mainly for food and goods and to a much lesser extent for agriculture. In addition to international migration, substantial migration occurs within the area. Once livelihoods permit, whole families choose to migrate to market areas, from uphill to downhill communities. This has led to land abandonment and an increase in forest cover in the upper part of the watershed and has also increased pressure on the land and exposure to flooding in the lower part

FR1.1: Do Water, Energy and Food Policies in Support of Solar Irrigation Enable Gender Transformative Changes in South Asia? Evidence from Policy Analysis in Bangladesh and Nepal

Solar-powered irrigation pumps (SIPs) is emerging as a popular technology to address water, energy and climate change challenges in South Asia, while enhancing livelihoods and food security. SIPs are deemed to be woman friendly renewable energy technology (RETs) because of its design, operation systems, and safety. While gender dimensions of natural resources are well documented, to what extent do water, energy and food (WEF) policies, including policies to promote SIP technologies in the countries of South Asia conceptualize and operationalize gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) are not well understood. We draw on a gender transformative analysis approach and rank WEF policies on a continuum ranging from scale of 0-3 (denoting gender blind, gender aware, gender responsive and gender transformative). We deploy this method to review 37 WEF sectoral policies of Bangladesh and Nepal. We find that while national governments are committed to gender equality and women's advancement and enshrine these principles in their Constitution, these higher-level aspirational principles are not always translated to the WEF sector policies. We find that WEF policies are aware of the need to include GESI and social equity in sectoral programming, yet operational rules for implementation of these policies often fail to the challenge structural barriers that prevent women and marginalized groups from participating in and benefiting from WEF policies, including from deployment of SIP technologies. This calls for transformation not only in the project implementation, but also in the policymaking processes of the WEF sectors in the South Asia region

FR2.2: A systems approach to sustainable and inclusive farmer-led irrigation development: A case analysis from Nepal

Farmer-led irrigation development (FLID) in Nepal has been largely synonymous to farmer-managed surface irrigation, rather than a broader encompassing of all farmer-led decisions, including small-scale choices. Many of the elements that affect farmer's adoption of social, technological, or institutional innovations in irrigation and agriculture are interconnected and need to be systemically examined to present a thorough analysis. This paper thereby presents a systemic analysis to better understand opportunities and barriers to farmer-led irrigation development in Nepal, especially for smallholders and women farmers. This is done by characterizing systemic barriers and opportunities shaped by policy environments, agricultural value chains, irrigation supply chains, private-public interventions, gender equality and social inclusion, (GESI) and new drivers such as COVID-19. The focus is on their intrinsic connections and mapping the ecosystem in which FLID is embedded. This paper is based on extensive qualitative literature and policy review coupled with primary data obtained through telephone interviews on analysing socio-economic policies, institutions, markets, and GESI-related barriers and opportunities in Nepal. The outcome is a comprehensive framework for sustainable and inclusive FLID

Improving equity outcomes in the solar irrigation subsidy delivery mechanism in Nepal

As of 2021, Nepal has installed over 2000 solar pumps. The Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC) provides a 60% subsidy to install these pumps. Data from AEPC shows that in the five years between 2016 and 2021, a total of 9100 farmers had applied for solar pumps, and 21% of those farmers, mainly from Nepal’s Tarai, got these pumps. The number of pumps given was limited by budget allocation but increased over time as outlays increased. The applicant pool tended to be relatively large holder male farmers from upper castes. While choosing beneficiaries for these subsidized solar pumps, officials of the AEPC managed to allocate a larger share of pumps to those with comparatively smaller landholdings, and 22% of the beneficiaries were women. However, with no formal criteria for selecting beneficiaries, the actual allocation process is subject to the discretion of the officials. Currently, the subsidy delivery policy is being revised. Transparent and inclusive criteria for beneficiary selection, greater involvement of local government institutions in the subsidy delivery process, better after-sales services, and periodic revisions of solar pump prices are recommended. These steps will likely help create demand from more diverse groups of farmers and ensure equity outcomes in the distribution of solar irrigation subsidies