Reposted from IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre: see the original post here. The article is written by Digbijoy Dey and reviewed by Ruchika Shiva. Photo: IRC.
Rural water supply services are evolving quickly because of technology, climate stress, financing models, and governance changes. And these changes differ from country to country and within countries. However, the changes have some common characteristics as well, at least in lower middle-income countries. During our recent visits to Nepal, we have tried to understand the dynamics of rural water supply in this country. Here rural water supply essentially includes small urban and rural municipalities.
Common trends in rural water supply
Recent research and publications have documented the changing models of rural water supply, including Shiva and Saha (2025), Odhiambo et al. (2025), USAID (2023), and SFF (2020). An AI-assisted trend analysis based on these works highlights several shifts. Globally, rural water supply is moving from handpumps to piped schemes, as exemplified by India’s Jal Jeevan Mission and Ethiopia’s HoA-GW4R Project. Management is becoming more professionalised through private operators, public–private partnerships, and utility-style agencies, replacing traditional community-based volunteer committees. At the same time, digitalisation is transforming service delivery with Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, prepaid meters, and mobile payment systems that improve monitoring, detect leaks, and enhance cost recovery.
Other major trends include the integration of climate resilience and source diversification, such as combining groundwater, rainwater harvesting, and surface water treatment with climate-proofed infrastructure and energy-efficient pumping. Solar-powered and hybrid renewable energy systems are replacing diesel pumps, while water safety planning, real-time quality monitoring, and low-cost treatment are gaining ground. Financial sustainability is being strengthened through volumetric tariffs, prepayment, and blended finance, while regionalisation is clustering small schemes under federated utilities. Equity and inclusion are also central, with greater focus on women, marginalised groups, and people with disabilities. Finally, rural water networks are increasingly designed for multiple uses, linking drinking water to irrigation, sanitation, and livelihoods.
Why Nepal is different
Nepal has a population of about 30 million, 23 million of them live in rural areas, mostly in mountainous and remote regions. As per JMP 2024, 77.2% of the population is accessing basic drinking water services, only 16.5% of the population access safely managed drinking water (the remaining 6.3% have limited or unimproved services). With an aspiration to deliver reliable services, Nepal is trying to change its water service delivery ecosystem. If we look closely, we will see that the trends in Nepal are similar to those mentioned above. The difference is, while most countries are adopting more professionalised private or utility-managed services, Nepal is embracing a more formal version of community-managed services to address the rural water need. Historically, water supply in rural areas of Nepal has been managed voluntarily by the community. At present, the Water Users’ and Sanitation Committees (WUSCs) are being formalised into legal entities under sector laws.
WUSCs were recognised in the Water Resource Act 1992 and associated Rules. They are formed by the local water users (often composed of nine members with 33% representation from women), who are also expected to contribute to both the scheme construction and its maintenance. WUSCs thus represent community-managed institutional arrangements. There are attempts at the federal level, to professionalise these committees. In the Drinking Water and Sanitation Regulation, 2025, WUSCs are positioned as the primary community-based service providers, with significantly increased legal and administrative accountability compared to previous frameworks. WUSCs now need to hold specific licenses for the survey, construction, and operation of water and sanitation systems. WUSCs are prohibited from charging tariffs or fees beyond the limits prescribed by the government. The relevant local government unit must issue these licenses within 90 days of receiving a valid application. In exchange they will receive capacity building support from the National Water Supply and Sanitation Training Center (NWSSTC) and the Department of Water Supply and Sewerage (DWSSM). WUSCs that meet performance benchmarks can access grants and technical support for system upgrades and climate-resilience projects.
Devolution under federalism
The 2015 Constitution and the Local Government Operation Act 2017 made local governments responsible for basic water and sanitation, with shared roles across federal, provincial, and local tiers. This is shifting oversight, asset ownership, and financing decisions to urban and rural municipalities. But many municipalities, especially the rural ones, are very weak in terms of institutional capacity, particularly for generating revenue. They largely rely on federal allocation to implement priority tasks. The remoteness of rural areas in Nepal further complicates the situation. It can easily be assumed that the municipalities do not want to bear responsibility for water supply in remote areas and therefore transfer it to WUSCs.
How are WUSCs looking at other trends
There’s a clear policy push from the federal government towards professionalisation, which means that WUSCs will be responsible for metering, cost-recovery tariffs, preventive maintenance, and hiring operators/technicians, so that community schemes run more like small utilities. Following the Nepal Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene Sector Development Plan (2016 – 2030), municipalities are preparing costed WASH plans aligned with the national Sector Development Plan (SDP 2016–2030), and development partners are funding capacity to plan, regulate and monitor community schemes. For instance, the Asian Development Bank supported Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Projects (I–III) that have scaled WUSC-managed piped schemes for populations of around 5,000–40,000. Such investments emphasise climate-resilient design (e.g., source protection, drought/landslide risk management, and solar pumping) and intend to achieve safely managed service levels.
Despite ongoing efforts, over half of small water schemes continue to face challenges such as source depletion, tariff collection, operator retention, and inadequate post-construction support—raising concerns about the overall planning and management of rural water schemes. However, these difficulties cannot be solely attributed to Nepal’s adoption of the community-managed model. In a country where much of the rural population lives in mountainous and hard-to-reach areas, attracting private operators to run water services is nearly impossible.
In this context, the efforts of Water Users’ and Sanitation Committees (WUSCs), despite their limited capacity and financial resources, are commendable. While the Government of Nepal and its development partners have introduced multiple initiatives to strengthen services, a critical gap remains: WUSCs are not engaged early enough in the scheme planning process. As a result, they often struggle to manage the systems once they are handed over. Encouragingly, some NGOs are beginning to bridge this gap. The evolution of a more professionalised version of community-managed rural water schemes in Nepal will therefore be important to watch in the coming years.
Rural Water Supply Network - blog 