As the world becomes urbanised and climate impact gets worse, water insecurity looms large around the world. As one of the flagship initiatives of IFSD, Water Security seeks to nurture and promote practices and institutions for enhancing water security in the contexts of population growth, rapid urbanisation, climate change, and deepening social inequalities.
With ‘clean water and sanitation’ as one of the 17 SDG goals, the significance of water agenda has elevated to the political level. Moreover, international conferences on water has sought political commitment towards sustainable sanitation and water access calling for the international community to provide technical and financial support bridging the gap related to water infrastructure.
Presenting an alarming situation of water security, the latest UN report states that 5 billion people will face the problem of water shortages by 2050. For more information click here.
Projects and Partnerships
IFSD Director Dr Hemant Ojha has been involved in a number of research projects and partnerships on water security. With a proven track record of winning international competition related to the environmental resource governance projects and awards, the highlights of Dr. Ojha’s ongoing and future assignments is presented below:
- Swedish Research Council, SLU, UNSW*Co-Principal Investigator on Conflict, Violence and Environmental Change: Investigating resource governance and legitimacy in transitional societies*June 2016-May 2020
- British Academy (International Partnership and Mobility Competition Awards), University of Edinburgh*Co-investigator Political Violence and Climate Change? Resource governance and post-conflict reconstruction in Nepal (with Prof Andrea Nightingale)*2012-15
- IDRC, Canada*Partner investigator (Theme Leader – action research and policy) on Climate adaptive and equitable water management systems for medium-sized cities: participatory research and innovation in north India and Nepal (with Prof R. Bajracharya, Mr N. Dahal, Dr K Shrestha, Professor P. McManus, Professor M. Sekhar) (Theme leader: Access and Equity in urban governance).*April 2016-March 2019. Click here for more information
- UK ESRC/NERC/ESPA*Co-investigator on The Political Economy of Water Security, Ecosystem Services and Livelihoods in the Western Himalayas, in Collaboration with Prof Bhaskar Vira of Cambridge University and Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies (SIAS), Nepal*18 months (2014-2015). Click here for more information
- Dannida Fellowship Centre, Denmark*Team Leader for Nepal on Four-Country Research on Climate Change and Rural Institutions (led by Danish Institute of International Studies (DIIS) (funded by Dannida Fellowship Centre, Denmark). *2011-14
- UK ESRC/NERC/ESPA*Co-investigator:A Socio-ecological Systems Analysis of the Political Economy of Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation, in collaboration with PI Genevieve Patenaude, University of Edinburgh, the UK.*2010
Dr. Basundhara Bhattarai, senior consultant (Gender, Environment and International Development) at IFSD also has a range of involvements in the projects related to water security and environmental governance.
- IDRC, Canada *Co-investigator on climate change, urbanization and water security in India and Nepal (2016-2018)
- ICIMOD, Nepal. *Gender Specialist for designing development projects pertaining to natural resources management, climate change adaptation, value chain development, livelihood and food security.
Consulting Services
Under the core team of IFSD are professionals with a rich experience of consulting in the field of agriculture, forestry and food security, environmental justice, gender, environment and international development, deliberative governance among others. Serving as the national as well as international specialist for development agencies including DFID, IFAD, USAID and IDRC, our team members have proved their consulting prowess. Click here for more information.
