Community-based WASH Project in Nepal

Access to water and sanitation has complex interrelated causes and improving access to safe drinking water and sanitation is known to have a significant beneficial impact on health both in households and across communities. Safe drinking water and adequate sanitation are the basic right of every citizen and are vital for improving health and alleviating poverty. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that communities have the capacity and means to access and manage a clean, sufficient, and sustainable water and maintain sanitation. Nepal has pledged to serve 72% and 53% of the people with drinking water and sanitation services respectively by 2015. Nepal has demonstrated some progress in improving access to drinking water, the country remains plagued by extremely low levels of sanitation. The population with adequate access to sanitation was only 29% (14 million people) in 2006. Out of 75 districts, 42 districts have sanitation coverage below the national average of 47%.

Current status

Baseline survey is under progress; two Village Development Committee (VDC) and one District level program induction workshop/meeting conducted; two WASH promotion campaigns organized and 500 hygiene kits distributed; ToT on WASH Education completed; WASH education - two classes of community led total sanitation (CLTS) is ongoing; Two events of mass media mobilization organized; 14 WASH users committees and 2 WASH networks formed;

WASH facility improvement in 6 schools and 14 communities; 20 schemes of drinking water will be installed; 12 events of WASH promotion campaigns will be organized. publication of best practices; WASH education - 12 Community led total sanitation (CLTS) and 6 School led total sanitation (SLTS) will be operated; 500 households will be involved in family nutrition promotion (Micro irrigation, kitchen gardening); One district and two VDCs levels WASH plans developed and disseminated; Budget tracking.

Reduced poverty and improved health, environmental and economic conditions by empowering people and creating an enabling environment thus achieving increased sustainable access to and use of safe water and sanitation services and improved hygiene practices. S.O: i) empower communities to demand and achieve sustainable access to and use of safe water, sustainable sanitation and hygienic living conditions ii) relevant service providers in the business sector, public sector and civil society cooperate to respond to the need for sustainable, accessible, affordable and demand-driven WASH services

Goals

• Empowered communities to demand and achieve sustainable access to and use of WASH
• Relevant service providers cooperate for sustainable WASH services

The project will adopt rights based approach and empowered communities to express their needs and demands to their local authorities for adequate budget allocation and use. The project will facilitate to establish VDCs and district levels WASH plans and support communities for lobby/advocacy actions to allocate adequate fund for implementation of those plans. Lobby and advocacy will also be done to mobilize VDC and schools resources for promotion of WASH facilities at community and schools. Efforts will be made to improve multi-stakeholder coordination and synergy in WASH sector at district and VDCs levels to meet the WASH needs of communities. A WASH fund will be established in each WASH user committee, as a local financing instrument, for the daily operation and maintenance of the WASH facilities. The LWF Nepal has well realization that the sole project support (grant) will not create local stewardship/ownership towards project initiatives; therefore the project will seek adequate contributions from direct focused population throughout the project activities. These initiatives will help ensure financial sustainability for continuation of WASH activities at local level.

The Project will adopt user’s group approach where different WASH user committees will be formed at village/cluster level and they will be federated into WASH networks at VDC level. Inclusive representation of women and vulnerable groups in user committees and networks will be ensured. These local institutions will develop good and democratic governance systems and procedures for effective delivery of WASH services to the communities. User committees/networks, community members, and local service providers will be empowered and capacitated to fulfil roles and responsibilities effectively and sustain the project initiatives in the long run as well as continue execution of WASH activities at local level. It is expected that these committees and networks will be effective and functional in long run and ensured institutional sustainability. Efforts will be made to develop coordination and linkages with government line agencies and other non-government institutions working in the WASH sector. Emphasis will be given to collaborative actions with these institutions in the WASH promotion such as drinking water and irrigation facilities improvement, toilet construction, awareness raising campaign and providing sanitation and hygiene kits, materials and equipments wherever possible. The WASH network at VDC level will be affiliated with District WASH coordination committee which will be overall responsible to oversee, promote and advocate the issues of the WASH related matters and channelize the services and resources from the government.

In the implementation of the project activities, due consideration will be given to environmental sustainability. Protection of water sources, proper waste management, declaration of NOD area, irrigation and drainage management are some of the initiatives of environmental concerns. Moreover, emphasis will be given to replication of the best practices in the areas identified by the government and non-government institutions. With the established monitoring system, the project interventions will be monitored in regular basis and look at the environmental impact linked to certain kinds of WASH interventions.

Since the last two decades, LWF Nepal has been providing care and maintenance services, including WASH facilities, to more than 100,000 Bhutanese refugees as well as implementing WASH initiatives under its Nepal Development Program (NDP) and various bilateral projects. Using local technologies and materials, LWF Nepal has been promoting safe drinking water facilities such as deep tub-well, hand pumps, tape water system, rainwater harvesting, water test and treatments and sanitation practices such as low-cost toilets, waste disposal pits, and waste collection. Under the project, local and proven technologies and materials, appropriate to local context, will be promoted to ensure technological sustainability. In order to maintain the standard of the technologies, SPHARE as well as appropriate local standard established in consultation with government agencies and other stakeholders.

Given the poor social setting of the project location such as poverty, illiteracy, gender discrimination, and power relations, the project will give deliberate focus on social sustainability of the project by increasing access to and control of poor women and other groups on all kinds of resources. Since women are the main actor to maintain household level sanitation and hygiene, the project will focus deliberately to women members by increasing their meaningful participation in the project activities and involving them decision-making position in WASH committees and networks.