[{"bbox": [83, 105, 1147, 266], "category": "Text", "text": "The Government declared Nepal as Open Defecation Free (ODF) country in September 2019. ODF is achieved when whole communities shift to using toilets instead of open defecation. While ODF has been declared, the actual situation is less encouraging. According to the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2019 (MICS), 94.5% of population are using improved sanitation facilities. Without water supply facilities in place, preventing the behaviour of shifting back to open defecation, even at small scale or temporarily, is a serious challenge for sustainability. The slippage (going back to open defecation) is estimated to range between 3.5 to 8.3% at national level.⁷"}, {"bbox": [83, 276, 1147, 410], "category": "Text", "text": "The federalisation process has devolved the delivery of many basic public services from the central to the municipal level. Municipalities have progressively taken responsibilities for maintenance and improvement of municipal infrastructure, e.g. water supply, solid waste management, schools, local roads, etc. The federal government makes significant fiscal transfers to local governments to ensure their financial capacity to do so, although the level of devolution of the budget depends on the sectors."}, {"bbox": [83, 421, 1147, 608], "category": "Text", "text": "Part of that recent devolution of services provision is the management of water supply schemes, including up-keep. Of the 42 039 water supply schemes⁸ that local authorities have inherited, 28% are well-functioning, 38% need minor repair, and the remaining 34% need major repairs. Thus, in order to reach SDG 6, construction of new schemes has to be complemented with reinvestment in existing schemes. Just 32% of schemes have a Water Supply and Sanitation Technician, only 38% have a registered Water Users and Sanitation Committee (WUSC)⁹ and less than 5% have an Operation and Maintenance (O&M) fund,¹⁰ which puts the sustainability of these schemes in question. Therefore, there's a need to invest in the governance to promote the sustainability of existing and future water schemes."}, {"bbox": [83, 619, 1147, 1041], "category": "Text", "text": "Inclusive access to water and sanitation is a crucial tool for social inclusion and gender equality. Many discriminatory practices against women and vulnerable groups are prevalent in water access, linked to caste notions of impurity and related to menstruation and childbirth. These result in an unequal access to water for different groups. Menstrual hygiene remains an important exclusion issue, with different degrees of exclusion for menstruating women and girls and women after childbirth. These range from exclusion from household tasks, to not being able to maintain basic hygiene, to being relegated to live outside the household during menstruation, often in secluded huts also used for animals. This last practice, Chhaupadi, is the cause of deaths every year and it is outlawed, but remains difficult to uproot completely, notably in remote areas in Karnali. Access to menstrual hygiene products remains a barrier for continued access to schooling for girls. The action will build on existing knowledge gained through previous experiences to promote transformational change on these exclusionary practices; for example, with menstrual segregation, previous experiences show that creating individual access to water (household taps) circumvents the hierarchies and exclusions that exist in public or collective taps, facilitating behaviour and norm changes. Inaccessible and unhygienic sanitation facilities can cause illness and injuries, as well as reducing dignity and increasing stigma for people with disabilities. Some persons with disabilities may require assistance to perform daily activities creating additional responsibilities for caregivers – especially when facilities are not accessible – and decreasing their capacity to access services."}, {"bbox": [83, 1045, 1147, 1230], "category": "Text", "text": "Karnali is extremely vulnerable to climate change impacts. The Karnali river basin has precipitation trends that vary significantly across different parts of the basin during different periods of the year, and the patterns are evolving rapidly. Climate change affects water availability and access. The major causal factors affecting the hydrological flow from this watershed are the deforestation, forest degradation, construction of improper rural roads, landslides, and havoc draught. Building resilience of communities thus calls for efforts at managing water in a range of scales from field to basin. Nature based solutions to promote resource conservation will be promoted. Synergies with other EU funded actions, notably on climate smart agriculture and inclusive education, will be promoted."}, {"bbox": [86, 1249, 326, 1281], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## 2.2. Problem Analysis"}, {"bbox": [83, 1294, 304, 1320], "category": "Text", "text": "Short problem analysis:"}, {"bbox": [83, 1320, 1147, 1452], "category": "Text", "text": "Karnali Province is the proposed project area. It is the only province in the country which is only in the hilly and mountainous regions with no low-land area in the Terai plain. Karnali is the largest province of Nepal (24 453 km²) and has the lowest population density (around 70 inhabitant/km²; current total population estimated at 1.7 million). There are 25 urban municipalities and 54 rural municipalities in the province. Karnali is the least developed province measured by the most common human development indicators¹¹."}, {"bbox": [72, 1522, 538, 1547], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁷ Global Sanitation Fund in Nepal, Annual Report 2019."}, {"bbox": [72, 1546, 516, 1570], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁸ National Management Information Project database"}, {"bbox": [72, 1570, 1155, 1595], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁹ Although it is compulsory by law. All RVWRMP supported schemes have a registered WUSC, with gender parity (48% women)"}, {"bbox": [72, 1595, 433, 1618], "category": "Footnote", "text": "¹⁰ World Bank (WB) study on functionality"}, {"bbox": [72, 1618, 1159, 1668], "category": "Footnote", "text": "¹¹ It ranks lowest of all provinces for Human Development Index (HDI), Human Poverty Index (HPI) and Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) according to Nepal Human Development Report 2014 & MPI 2018, 2019 Gender Development index (GDI) value of"}, {"bbox": [1051, 1694, 1158, 1718], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 5 of 17"}]