The Bagmati River winds through the Kathmandu Valley, carrying centuries of cultural, spiritual, and ecological significance. Central to sacred rituals, family traditions, and local identity, the river is now heavily polluted after decades of unmanaged urban growth, poor sanitation, and fragmented governance.
Bagmati River Credit: Wikipedia
For the marginalised communities living along its banks, the river’s decline is not just an environmental crisis, it is about exclusion from decisions that shape their daily lives. Previous initiatives have often focused on infrastructure fixes, but this project revealed a deeper governance challenge: whose voices are heard, and whose are not.
Nepal’s water management suffers from overlapping mandates, limited municipal capacity, and historically top-down planning. In the Bagmati corridor, millions depend on the river, yet few influence its management. Climate change is intensifying these pressures, with more frequent monsoon flooding overwhelming drainage systems, displacing residents, and heightening health risks, especially for women, people with disabilities, and informal settlers.
With the support and expertise of the Australian Water Partnership (AWP), Includovate partnered with Canopy Nepal and the National Indigenous Disabled Women Association – Nepal (NIDWAN) to conduct an inclusive scoping study examining river water pollution from a Gender, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) perspective.
Bagmati River Pashupatinath Temple Credit Uwe Gille
AWP’s trusted role as a broker was critical to the project which saw partners facilitate collaboration between community groups and development partners, ensuring that diverse voices could directly influence planning.
The AWP supported a facilitative model – centering local voices, not external agendas. This approach reflects AWP’s commitment to equitable, climate-resilient water futures, showing how inclusive governance can be both a method and a measurable outcome:
- Transect walks brought residents, researchers, and officials together to map access points, identify flood-prone areas, and witness the challenges first-hand.
- Photovoice trained youth to capture the river’s degradation and cultural significance through images and captions.
- Storytelling sessions gave elders, parents, and children space to share memories, rituals, and hopes for the river—surfacing emotional connections often absent in policy debates.
- Co-design workshops convened women, people with disabilities, Indigenous leaders, and municipal representatives to jointly develop solutions, from inclusive waste management to flood evacuation plans.
Storytelling sessions created space for community, including children, to share memories, poems, and reflections—unveiling a quiet grief for the river, surfacing voices too often left unheard.
Unexpectedly, flooding, not pollution, emerged as the dominant concern. Participants voiced fears for children’s safety, the loss of ritual spaces, and the lack of early warning systems. Children’s contributions brought rare intergenerational insight, deepening the urgency of the discussion.
This process shifted the conversation from technical fixes to governance reform. More than 40 organisations engaged, including 14 disability-led groups, strengthening cross-sector trust and momentum for joint advocacy. Community-led insights shaped practical recommendations, such as integrating flood preparedness into municipal planning and ensuring infrastructure is accessible to all.
The Bagmati study offers insights and approaches for Gender Equality, Disability, and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) integrated water governance across Nepal and the Indo-Pacific. It shows that climate adaptation and social inclusion are inseparable and resilience cannot be achieved if the most affected are excluded from decision-making.
With climate volatility set to increase flood risks, embedding participatory approaches into water governance is essential. This initiative demonstrates AWP’s commitment to embedding Gender Equality, Disability, and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) perspectives into water resource management by creating spaces for diverse stakeholders to come together, preserve cultural memory, and work towards more equitable, effective, and climate-resilient water systems.
Inclusion is not an add-on- it is the foundation for water systems that work for all.
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