Presented by IWMI's Gitta Shrestha at Stockholm World Water Week session on 'Women and youth: Living apart together', held on August 25, 2019.

1. Unravelling gendered practices in public water
sector in Nepal
Stockholm World Water Week, 2019
Gitta Shrestha, Floriane Clement
IWMI, Nepal.

2. The Problem: The gap between policy and practice.
Why 33% target
of effective
women
participation in
WUG is not
achieved?

3. Outlooks• The state, policy
makers and
project
implementers
•Scholars
Gendered
Organisation
s/Institutions
Local
Gender
Norms

4. Research Question
How gendered
discourses,
institutions and
masculine
professional
culture contribute
to policy gaps?

5. Methodology
• Review relevant public policies
• 21 (12 females, 9 males) Semi-structured interviews
• Engineers, sociologists and gender experts
• TPC framework for strategic change management (Tichy, 1983),
Oxfam Novib (2010).
• Studies on gender and water (M. Z. Zwarteveen, 2008; Clement
et al., 2015;Liebrand & Udas, 2017).

6. Dominant policy narratives and assumptions on
gender and water
1. Technical , natural, not a social, object,
benefits everyone, men and women,
equally.
2. Water collection women’s
responsibility, developing local water
supply infrastructure is sufficient
condition to improve women’s
livelihoods.
3. Women's participation in WUAs is a
sufficient and necessary condition for
greater gender equity.
‘Water is such an
issue where we
cannot exclude
any caste,
ethnicity or
gender. It is
inclusive in itself’
-Male respondent,
Government Agency

7. Organisational Structure
 GESI- a fringe issue restricted to policy level: concern of
sociologist, role limited to the creation and capacity building of
formal WUAs, less resources and lack authority
 Less non-technical staff; Civil engineers dominate the
organisation.
• Achievement measured in terms of financial and physical
progress [budget spent/infrastructure built], no incentives for
GESI.

8. Professional Culture
• Masculine
• Engineering [hard
core science] -
Superior
• Large scale
infrastructure -
Priority
• The ability to give
preference to work
over family
• Performance
evaluation,
Promotion ladder
• Feminine
• Sociology [soft
knowledge] Equity
and Justice
• GESI – anyone
can do
• Reproductive
responsibilities
• Soft knowledge -
third class
gazetted officers
‘You never know what kind of health issues they [female staff] are facing – pregnancy,
mensuration etc. It is difficult for them to travel on motorbikes. This has led to cases of
miscarriages and immature births’ . Female, Government Agency.

9. Next Steps
• Shift policy discourse:
Techical/natural vs. Social
object; diversityof voices,
experiences and subjectivities
• Institutional structure –
diversity at all levels,
financial/human resources,
incentives, performance
evaluation/promotion rules
• Professional Culture – values
of empathy and respect,
create safe space: first step –
gender & social hierarchies

10. Thank you!
stories.iwmi.org
Questions and feedbacks g.shrestha@cigar.org