Functionality of Rural Community Water Supply Systems and Collective Action: a Case of Guras Rural Municipality, Karnali Province

Alok Rajouria; Tina  Wallace; Deepa Joshi; Manita  Raut

doi:10.3126/nppr.v2i1.48684

Authors

Alok Rajouria Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR)
Tina Wallace Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR)
Deepa Joshi Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR)
Manita Raut Australian National University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3126/nppr.v2i1.48684

Keywords:

rural water supply, community management of water in Nepal, water user groups, water user committee, functionality, Ostrom's design principles, design principles

Abstract

Ensuring the long-term functionality of community-managed rural water supply systems has been a persistent development challenge. It is well established that the technicalities of keeping the systems going are impacted by complex political, social, financial, and institutional challenges. While the shift to federal, three-tiered governance allocates concurrent responsibility for drinking water management to the local government with federal and provincial governments, water and sanitation user groups continue to shoulder the management of local supply systems voluntarily. All three levels have jurisdiction over water-related services resulting in confusion of roles. This study focuses on the local level, where community management of water and sanitation decentralisation is the key approach in this complex tangle of diverse institutions with different actors managing and governing water. User Groups and their Committees in the Guras Rural Municipality of Dailekh district, Karnali province, in West Nepal, provided the case study, which was analysed using Ostrom's well-recognised Eight Principles for Sustainable Governance of Common-Pool Resources. The community-based model, established formally through the Water Resource Act 1992 (2049 BS), is critically analysed in light of the changing socio- economic context through the intervening years. The results highlight the need for stronger collaboration between the rural municipality and users to achieve good water supplies and the risks of losing access and voice in water management for women and marginalised people when inactive user groups are replaced by private or group interests taking control of the water access.

Author Biographies

Alok Rajouria, Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR)

Alok Rajouria (PhD) is a social scientist with more than fifteen years of work experience in international development, particularly in social research, monitoring and evaluation, and program development. He holds a master’s degree in International Development from the University of Minnesota where he was a Fulbright student and a doctoral degree in Social Welfare from the University of Hawaii as an East West Center degree fellow.

Tina Wallace, Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR)

Tina Wallace (PhD, Makerere University, Uganda) is based in UK and has several decades of experience researching and teaching in international development, in University and INGO. She is a gender specialist with wide experience in many institutions and in different countries. She is also an activist. She has extensive experience of working in water, irrigation and agriculture across Africa and the Middle East, as well as Nepal. She is now an independent

Deepa Joshi, Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR)

Deepa Joshi is the Gender, Youth and Inclusion Lead at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). A feminist political ecologist by training, her research has analysed shifts in environmental policies and how these restructure contextually complex intersections of gender, poverty, class, ethnicity and identity. Her interests lie in connecting gender and environmental discourse to local capacity building initiatives and advocating for policy- relevant change across developmental institutions. She has worked primarily in South Asia, and to a lesser extent in South East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

Manita Raut, Australian National University

Manita Raut is a PhD researcher and a John Allwright fellow at the Australian National University's Crawford School of Public Policy. She is currently conducting research on the barriers and enablers of irrigation technology adoption. Manita has five years of experience in natural resource management and is committed to gender and socially inclusive water

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