Informed decision making for drainage management

Implementing water and sanitation project is very often a constraint minimisation exercise, where the concerns of major stakeholders are comprehensively appraised against different, sometimes discrete and mutually contradicting, factors. This issue is even more complex for developing countries where the investment decisions are characterised by internal trade-offs, primarily to the softer sectors of the society. The history of infrastructure planning in developing countries have enough testimony to prove that given the decision-making is a complex process, the investment decisions are often made without taking into consideration of the concerns of the entire spectrum of stakeholders. Very often the “cost” of the facilities is considered as an only basis to make investment decision. This case study presents an attempt made to bring the stakeholders and their concerns within a single framework. The exercise was undertaken in Nepal to address the complexity of decision-making process for drainage development. This project demonstrated that any water supply and drainage development intervention requires consideration of a multitude of decision-making variables. This project used a very affordable and judgement based methodology, in that, it utilized Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to make the investment decision. The project was completed in two stages - in the first stage, a master plan was prepared to identify various options; and, in the second, strategy for implementation was prioritised.