Water

Dams and Development E-Paper Contents

p. -1 of 74 BACK | NEXT Home Page of Dams and Development Foreword I. Why an e-paper on dams and development? II. Assessing options III. Participatory processes IV. Social impacts V. Environmental impacts VI. Benefit distribution VII. Dam safety and sustainability VIII. Existing projects IX. Improving governance X. What other organizations say XI. ADB, Dams, and Development XII. References Contact Us

Nepal: Irrigation Management Transfer Project (IMTP)

Project design and implementation

Given women’s central role in agriculture and the maintenance of irrigation systems, the IMTP project design team was aware that failure to include female farmers in Water User Assocaitions (WUAs) would compromise the project’s overall development objectives. Although specific measures were built into IMTP at the design stage to ensure that women farmers would be major beneficiaries of the project, during the mid-term project implementation review mission, ADB found that the IMTP project had not paid close attention to the existing gender disparities and their implications for the achievement of project’s overall objectives.

Mid-course correctional strategies

Based on the project review findings, ADB in consultation with the project management unit, implemented correctional strategies at mid-course of loan implementation to achieve better gender-based results under IMTP. The strategies included gender awareness training for project staff and female farmers, and gender mainstreaming within the Department of Irrigation (DOI).

Gender responsive WUAs

In support of ADB's IMTP, the a pilot project was initiated under the Panchakanya sub-project. The pilot project, 'Building Gender Responsive Water User Associations' was developed to:

• test and document ways in which women could better contribute to irrigation management, cost recovery and improved agricultural production; and
• identify strategies for incorporating gender concerns in the remaining sub-projects of the IMTP.

Recommendtaions

Based on experiences under the pilot initiative of the IMTP in Nepal, the following recommendations are provided for development practitioners who wish to improve irrigation management.

• Ensure that a Gender Action Plan (GAP) is prepared to guide the implementation of gender-based interventions outlined in project design. Gender-based targets and objectives will not be achieved unless project executing agencies are provided technical assistance or training to understand how to implement GAPs.
• Projects that advocate participatory processes need to plan with women, not around them. All irrigation projects should ensure women's participation in planning and management of irrigation systems so that women’s roles as irrigators, water users and farmers are not overlooked. A Women's Facilitator Group (WFG) within a WUA may provide incentives for women's participation in societies where women are reluctant to join mixed groups.
• Efforts to improve gender responsiveness in WUAs must be part of an overall process of social and institutional development so that men will understand and support the changes taking place in community-based organizations and decisionmaking processes.

For more details on the approach and lessons learned from the pilot initiative, see the brochure Building Gender Responsive Water Users Associations.

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