A gender perspective to understanding and enhancing the functionality of water supply systems

The Nepal office of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) is currently engaged in a research project  A gender perspective to understand and enhance the functionality of water supply systems: Lessons from Nepal, that explores how gender relationships and power dynamics influence the sustainability and functionality of water supply systems in the country. The aim of the project is to address a major limitation in current approaches to women’s empowerment in the water sector, where the focus for both research and development interventions has been on women’s individual empowerment, with inadequate attention given to collective action and collective empowerment.

While institutional models such as water user groups/committees have helped address the problem of ownership
linked to water system functionality (White et al. 2015), there is growing interest in understanding how power relationships and history shape access to water resources (Mosse 1997; Franks and Cleaver 2007).

This IWMI technical brief sheds light on the status of water system functionality in the project sites, mechanisms that govern these systems, and the extent to which these mechanisms are inclusive and promote gender equality and diversity.

Prepared by Labisha Uprety (Research Officer - Policy and Water Governance), with support from Manohara Khadka (Country Representative - Nepal), Alok Rajouria (Researcher [Social Science]) and Manita Raut (Senior Research Officer - Social Science)

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