Communities in the Koshi River Basin deal with numerous water management issues to ensure adequate water year-round. Decisions about how much water is available, distributed, and used is often made at the district or national level. These decision-making processes often lack local context-specific knowledge, resulting in informal local-level management that leaves out marginalized individuals from the decision-making process. Local Water Use Master Plans (WUMPs), prepared through an inclusive and participatory process, aim to improve access to and equitable distribution of water among community members, giving special emphasis to the marginalized, such as women and the poor.

Saptari district in Nepal lies within the plain ecological zone in the Koshi River Basin. Water Use Master Plans (WUMPs) in Saptari were developed at the VDC level beginning in 2014 to capture river basin characteristics. To date, Saptari has successfully prepared plans at the VDC level in one of their catchments. Importantly, this innovative approach was acknowledged by the Saptari DDC. In 2017, four VDCs allocated 5% of their budget to prepare small selected plans from the WUMPs. Both ICIMOD and Helvetas, Nepal, play crucial roles in strengthening the network with other districts and national level governmental and non-governmental organizations, the private sector, implementers, etc. to ensure the implementation of selected schemes. The chairperson of the Narharinath rural municipality in Kalikot will be sharing their experience in implementing the WUMP. The changing administrative structures and presence of elected leadership at the local level has increased the demand for WUMPs at the local level due to its participatory, holistic, and decentralized planning process.

Workshop objectives

1. Share the WUMP process and the prioritized schemes with newly elected local level authorities.
2. Share the experience of WUMP implementation in western Nepal where local authorities have successfully implemented selected WUMP schemes.
3. Support the development of a network of local level authorities with higher level governmental and non-governmental authorities, the private sector, and developmental agencies for the implementation of selected WUMP schemes.
4. Discuss a clear way forward for dissemination and implementation of WUMP in Saptari.