Much research has been done and valuable recommendations made to increase the effectiveness
of farmer-managed irrigation systems (FMIS) in Nepal (Gill 1996). However, an integrated
approach emphasizes that development policy should not merely work on issues of one sector
and resource scarcity but shift attention to multiple sectors and access to resources.
Despite continued government efforts to curb poverty, 42 percent of the population in
Nepal still suffer from poverty (Vaidya 1999). There have been many debates and criticisms
about the government’s welfare interventions in this mountainous country (Jodha 1995;
Bandyopadhyay and Gyawali 1994; Giri 1992). In the case of utilization of water resources,
state-led development activities have demonstrated a bias in irrigation and rural water supply
that ignored or bypassed village communities (Bandyopadhyay and Gyawali 1994; ERL 1988).
The cumulative effects of the past efforts can also be illustrated by the national statistics of
increased food deficit during 1989–97 that are attributed to decreased agricultural productivity
(MDD 1998[xx This is not referenced]). As the conventional development approaches could
not meet the expectation placed on them to sustain agricultural productivity and to keep up
natural resources systems, a shift in the development paradigm to newer concepts has now
begun to gain momentum.
Some of the implications of the above debates and conclusions might have been very
instrumental for the government to emphasize in the Ninth Five-Year Plan (1997–2002) for the
development of a policy on overall water resources. The baseline document of the Ninth FiveYear
Plan puts forth the necessity of discouraging earlier sectoral- or subsectoral-biased policies
and developing an overall water resources policy that will emphasize managing the growing
inter-sectoral competition over water use (National Planning Commission [NPC] 1997)
Embracing the idea of a basin approach to water resources management and to contribute
to the national objective of poverty alleviation, the Water Management Study Program (WMSP)
at the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Sciences (IAAS), Tribhuvan University, Rampur,
Chitwan, Nepal collaborated with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Sri
Lanka and the Department of Irrigation, Kathmandu, Nepal for a series of studies on a) the
performance assessment of irrigation systems, b) socioeconomic and stakeholder analysis, c)
institutional analysis, and d) water accounting of the east Rapti river basin of Nepal for
developing effective water management institutions.