WaterAid Nepal

WaterAid will support 29,419 schoolchildren and teachers gain access to inclusive water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services enhancing gender equality in 104 schools in Nepal. Women and Girls at school and 9,753 members of the community will be empowered to manage menstruation hygienically and with dignity. This will include improved WASH facilities, raised awareness, affordable supply chains for sanitary materials and increased institutional accountability

FCDO's WASH Systems for Health Programme (WS4H) aims to support government-led initiatives to accelerate progress in their WASH priorities. The theory of change (TOC) sets out change pathways to drive performance improvements in focus WASH systems building blocks at national and selected sub-national levels to contribute to increased access and use of sustainable, inclusive and climate-resilient WASH services. Through collective actions with government and stakeholders, this will contribute to a progressive reduction in WASH-related diseases, particularly for women, children and infants in underserved, climate-vulnerable locations in Bangladesh and Nepal. In Bangladesh, we will work with rural Union Parishad and urban Municipality governments across two climate-vulnerable Upazilas (sub-districts) and at the national level to operationalize the National Strategy for Water Supply and Sanitation (NSWSS 2021) and support the transition to safely managed service levels for rural water supply and small-town sanitation. The project will work with mandated institutions, including Department for Public Health Engineering (DPHE) and Local Government Institutions (LGIs), as well as private sector and community organizations to demonstrate models for safely managed, climate resilient WASH services; increase women's leadership for WASH to improve gender responsiveness; expand use of the Integrated Municipal Information System (IMIS) and participatory mechanisms for planning, financing, monitoring and regulating inclusive and resilient WASH services; and utilize learning platforms for replication and policy improvements. In Nepal, we will strengthen systems for decentralized WASH service delivery, focusing on safely managed, gender-responsive sanitation and hygiene service delivery in rural areas by leveraging the legal, political and institutional mechanisms that can support the three autonomous tiers of government to connect and function effectively as a system. The approach aims to improve system performance at the federal level, within two targeted provinces, and with one target District Coordination Committee (DCC) in each province. It will involve supporting the development of provincial legal frameworks for WASH, working with local governments in two provinces to prepare and utilize data-driven WASH plans and budgets, improving public finance flows, and building capacities for political advocacy by civil society networks and local government for prioritization and commitment for WASH at all levels

The project increases retention of adolescent girls and girls with disabilities for education with inclusive WASH services and menstrual health by empowering them to raise their voices to address socio-cultural and economic barriers; to strengthen duty bearers to ensure they prioritise education and inclusive WASH facilities with adequate resources, gender sensitive plans and policies for increased participation of adolescent girls and those with disabilities in education in schools. By 2025, targeted adolescent girls and boys; and children with disabilities (CWD) aged 11-20 will have an improved and more gender responsive and inclusive school and wider enabling learning environment.