Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how the leadership of small-town Dhulikhel, Nepal overcame water insecurity through the development of governance and management strategies without state support, to exert and develop systems of control over local resources and to maintain these systems for water security.

Paper long abstract:

Nepal hill towns face unprecedented water scarcity due to rapid population growth and escalating demands for domestic and other uses of water. Traditional local sources are proving inadequate to meet these growing needs. Nepal has a long history of community-led management over local resources. To overcome increasing water insecurity, local communities have had to evolve and develop governance and management strategies without state support, as the Nepali state lurched from crisis to crisis. Control over local resources, and demonstration of effective provision skills and strategies, were strong factors in the development of local political capital and success amongst local leaders. In post-earthquake Nepali politics these local adaptations strategies have been turned into 'formal' political capital through the advent/reintroduction of local elections, and the re-appearance of the 'formal' state. These developments extend our understandings of formal/informal regulation of natural resources and the ways in which scarcity and crises provide windows of opportunity that leaders may recognise and use. We examine these dynamics specifically through the Dhulikhel Drinking Water Supply Project, which is widely perceived as one of the most successful community-governed drinking water projects in the mid-hills towns of Nepal. The project sources its water through negotiated agreements between upstream rural communities and the downstream town. These negotiations and formal agreements are also rich sources from which to investigate how negotiations over natural resources are guided by social and political contexts and leadership forms, wherein socio-political landscapes and pressures challenge the stability of water provision arrangements.