Nepal

Maya Tamang doing the paperwork for maintenance of the local fog collectors which supply water to her village.

Credit: WaterAid / Josh Hobbins

Nepal lies landlocked between India and China, its dramatic landscape rising from the lowland plains of the Terai up to the peak of Everest in the Himalayas.

After a decade-long violent conflict between Maoist, Monarchist forces and political parties that has claimed more than 13,000 lives and damaged the social and physical infrastructure of the country, Parliament has now been restored.

However, the troubles continue and have added new challenges to development, especially in rural areas where most WaterAid-supported projects and partners operate. People are increasingly migrating to urban centres to escape the poverty or violence of life in the country.

Although it is estimated that most people have access to water, in hill areas distances to water sources are great. The Terai wells are often highly polluted and the quality of water is affected by the presence of arsenic in many areas. Well over half of the population do not have access to sanitation, spreading disease through unhygienic living environments.

WaterAid in Nepal

WaterAid began work in Nepal in 1986 and now works with six NGO partners in rural and urban areas.

Credit: WaterAid / Caroline Penn

WaterAid began its water, sanitation and hygiene work in Nepal in 1986 and has continued despite the political instability and conflict of recent years.

Our activities with six partner organisations are vital as without safe water to drink and somewhere hygienic to go to the toilet childhood ailments like diarrhoea are killers (worldwide 5000 children die a day from water-related diseases).

WaterAid's aim is to improve the lives of poor people through its work with non governmental organisations (NGOs) partners, which in Nepal are: Nepal Water for Health (NEWAH), Lumanti, Environment and Public Health Organisation, Urban Environment Management Society, Centre for Integrated Urban Development, and NGO Forum.

WaterAid also supports the Federation of Water and Sanitation Users Group (FEDWASUN) - a network with more than with 700 water and sanitation users groups representing 50,000 households - to make the voices of poor people heard by the local governments and service providers at the national level.

In rural areas WaterAid and NEWAH have provided water, sanitation and hygiene education to more than 3% of the population, while our urban work reaches those living in slum and squatter settlements in the Kathmandu valley and towns in the narrow strip of flat, fertile land along the Indian border called the Terai.

Nepal rises out of the Terai up into the incredibly steep foothills and mountains of the Himalayas. This extreme topography determines the areas which can be accessed and the methods used to ensure safe drinking water and improved sanitation. Technologies are chosen that are appropriate to local conditions, affordable and easy to set up and maintain by the communities themselves.

Ensuring the quality of water sources is a major challenge. In the Terai arsenic has been found in 17% of wells. WaterAid and its partners use arsenic detection and mitigation methods to keep wells safe.

Falling water tables and ground water pollution pose additional challenges to providing water and sanitation services to poor people in Nepal.

In the hills projects use gravity flow piped supplies where water can be transported by  pipework from natural springs to tapstands placed near to homes, thus reducing the drudgery involved in carrying water a long way. In Kathmandu traditional wells are rehabilitated and shallow tubewells installed.

Caste is a basis for major divisions in Nepal so WaterAid's partners adopt caste sensitive programmes.

Credit: WaterAid / Jim Holmes

Education on hygiene practices is also carried out in communities, maximising the health benefits of improved water and sanitation services. Water-related diseases are common in Nepal but for the majority of the population the causes of ill-health are shrouded in superstition.

Hygiene education is always included in WaterAid projects so that communities learn the importance of handling water safely and associated hygiene practices. Hygiene education tiles on the walls of some villages' public latrines, depict images to promote the importance of washing hands after visiting the latrine or of washing vegetables before cooking. Other promotion methods include role play, puppet shows, songs, home visits and practical lessons.

As well as helping communities to manage water and sanitation improvements and change their hygiene practices, the sustainability of projects is always key to our work in Nepal. For example, NEWAH has piloted the establishment of a SaniMart to increase the accessibility of latrine parts in the Udayapur district in the Eastern region.

SaniMarts are easily accessible shops, staffed by trained sanitation promoters, where latrine construction materials, which are usually hard to come by, are sold at affordable rates.

Download the Nepal country information sheet ( PDF 657Kb).