National Conference on Rainwater Harvesting for Livelihood, Community & Ecosystem Resilience concluded adopting seven point recommendation. The two day conference concluded that rainwater harvesting is considered a viable option to overcome water poverty and provide related services to improve livelihood, community and ecosystem resilience and must, therefore, be promoted accordingly.

The conference said that there need a paradigm shift from the traditional thinking of a single purpose of augmenting domestic water supply to a multipurpose use of rainwater and as an important part of integrated water resources management and at the same time for ecosystem conservation.

It says that Rainwater harvesting should be promoted at all levels, such as household, community, municipality and watershed levels and rainwater harvesting should not be limited to rural areas, rather it is increasingly more important to urban areas, benefiting poor and rich equally.

The workshop also said that the management of rainwater harvesting systems should include conservation, water quality as well as disaster management issues; and land use zoning and enforcement is a key to sustainable water management.

Attract and support the private sector who can see providing rainwater harvesting services as a viable business – strive for a win-win situation for the state, users and the private sector.

It also stresses the need to Encourage international collaboration and learn from experienced countries, such as Korea, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as successful cases have been reported from these countries in this conference.

Water quality is a major issue in using rainwater for any purpose. Therefore, monitoring and management of water quality should be considered as a priority task by all – the Government, private sector, communities and individual users.

The government’s responsibility should include preparing updated policies, laws, guidelines and manuals; monitoring and enforcement, providing incentives for adopting rainwater harvesting as an attractive option – giving due considerations to the federal structural consisting of central, provincial and local governments.

For the success of rainwater harvesting, special awareness campaigns and inclusion of curricula in educational institutions should be followed.

Nepal should adopt to the concept of Smart Water Grid including the use of IT tools, especially considering the Korean expertise and experience which will benefit the water supply management in Kathmandu valley.

Inaugurated by minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Barshaman Pun, the chief guest of concluding session was Minster of Drinking Water Bina Magar.