Regional Centre for Strategic Studies: Dipak Gyawali

Dipak Gyawali

Mr. Dipak Gyawali is Pragya (Academician) of the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) and Chair of the non-profit Nepal Water Conservation Foundation. He has been conducting interdisciplinary research on the interface between technology and society, and has published numerous articles on the topic of water, energy, dams, and climate change issues. A Moscow-trained hydroelectric power engineer and a University of California at Berkeley-trained political economist, he has initiated reforms in the electricity and irrigation sectors during his time as Nepal’s Minister of Water Resources in 2002/2003. As a Cultural Theorist upholding the idea of institutional pluralism and its “three-legged policy stool” that requires all three styles of organizing (state, market and civic volunteerism), he was able to introduce “communitization” of electricity, the largest privatization to date of a power company bombed during the Maoist insurgency, and introducing personnel and other management improvements within the hierarchic national electricity utility as well in his role as its ex-officio chair. He also initiated the first national review of Nepali laws with the guidelines of the World Commission on Dams and brought about policy changes in irrigation through enacting Irrigation Policy 2060 that provided more say to the informal farmer-managed irrigation systems.

He has been involved, inter alia, as guest scholar and researcher at various institutions such as the Queen Elizabeth House in Oxford, the Norwegian Center for Research in Organization and Management in Bergen, the International Environmental Academy in Geneva, at the London School of Economics, and at the United Nations University in Yokohama as UNESCO visiting professor of water and cultural diversity. He has served as a member of the panel of experts for the Mekong River Commission reviewing its basin development plan and was on the steering committee of the Mekong Program on Water, Environment and Resilience (MPower) where he has pursued the promotion of the Mekong-Ganga Dialogue. He was also on the international advisory panel of Pacific Northwest National Lab’s monumental work Human Choice and Climate Change; has served on Coca Cola’s International Environmental Advisory Board; and is currently vice-chair of the Technical Advisory Committee of UNESCO’s World Water Assessment Program; member of the Program Advisory Committee of Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) as well as member of the Advisory Board of the STEPs Center of the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), Sussex University.

In Nepal, he was the founding chairman of of a grassroots voluntary NGO dedicated to the task of poverty alleviation, the Rural Self-Reliance Development Center (Swabalamban), as well as the first liberal arts college, the Nepa School of Social Sciences and Humanities. In 1986/87 he served as the member of a Nepal government commission (the ‘Pokhrel Commission’) which investigated the reasons for the failure of the 12-year long World Bank-led water supply projects in a dozen Nepali cities. He currently serves on the advisory board of several civic organizations such as Biogas Support Program, National Association of Community Electricity Users Nepal etc.; and he is also a member of the NWCF/ICIMOD team conducting action research on the causes and consequences of the drying of springs in Mid-hill Himalaya.

His current research interest being society-technology interface, he has published extensively in Nepal and internationally. He is proficient in English, Nepali, Russian and Hindi.

Some of his significant publications include:

Aid, Technology and Development: The Lessons from Nepal (edited with M. Thompson and M. Verweij). London: Earthscan (forthcoming Nov. 2016)
Nexus Governance: Harnessing Contending Forces at Work, Nexus Dialogue Synthesis Papers. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. Nexus Governance: Harnessing Contending Forces at Work Synthesis Paper
Why a Nexus Approach is Critical to Water Management. In Nick Mitchell IUCN (Oct 2015) http://www.thesourcemagazine.org/category/the-debate/
Proceedings of the South Asia Regional Fulbright Alumni Workshop on the Water-Energy-Food Nexus (2015). With Laurie Vasily, Bill Young, Philippus Wester http://lib.icimod.org/record/30999
Technical veil, hidden politics: Interrogating the power linkages behind the nexus, Water Alternatives (2015): http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/alldoc/articles/vol8/v8issue1/277-a8-1-1/file (with J. Allouche and C. Middleton)
Mughlani Elections through Nepali Eyes, Seminar April 2014, Issue 656, New Delhi (special issue on the implications of the 2014 Indian general elections): http://www.india-seminar.com/semframe.html
From Ma Ganga to Mae Khongkha and back. Seminar December 2013, Issue 652, New Delhi (special issue on Sharing River Waters, with a special focus on the Mekong-Ganga Dialogue: http://www.india-seminar.com/2013/652/652_dipak_gyawali.htm ).
Expanding Energy Access, Improving Women’s Lives in the online roundtable of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (2013): http://www.thebulletin.org/expanding-energy-access-improving-womens-lives
Reflecting on the Chasm between Water Punditry and Water Politics, in Water Alternatives (2013): http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=45&Itemid=1
Re-imagining the Rural-Urban Continuum: Understanding the role ecosystem services play in the livelihoods of the poor in desakota regions undergoing rapid change. Research Gap Analysis conducted by the Desakota Study Team of which he was Team Leader for the ESPA Program of NERC/DfID/ESRC of the UK. Published by Institute for Social and Environmental Transition-Nepal (ISET-N), Kathmandu, Nepal, 2008.
EU-INCO water research from FP4 to FP6 (1994-2006) – a critical review. Luxembourg, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, (with J.A. Allan et al.) which can be downloaded from the EU website http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/water-initiative,2006
Ropeways in Nepal: Context, Constraints and Co-evolution, (edited with A. Dixit and M. Upadhya), Nepal Water Conservation Foundation and Kathmandu Electric Vehicle Alliance, 2004
Aid Under Stress: Rural Water Supply, Forestry & Finnish Aid in Nepal, (with S. Sharma, J. Koponen and A. Dixit (eds)), Himal Books for University of Helsinki and Interdisciplinary Analysts, Kathmandu, 2004. Chapter on Foreign Aid, Governance and Corruption.
Rivers, Technology and Society, Zed Books/London, 2003 (Nepali edition published in 2001 by Himal Books and Panos South Asia, Kathmandu, 2001 as Water in Nepal ).
Constructive Engagement (with Dore and Vernon, including What is special about water? and Social solidarities – wax, wick, flame – science and art) in Dore, J., Robinson, J. and Smith, M. (Eds) (2010). Negotiate – Reaching agreements over water. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.
Construction and Destruction of Scarcity in Development: A Case Built from Water and Power Experiences in Nepal (with A. Dixit). Chapter in IDS Sussex book Limits to Scarcity edited by Lyla Mehta (Earthscan 2010).
Water and Conflict: whose ethics is to prevail? Chapter in Marcelino Botin Foundation/Santander, Spain book Water and Ethics edited by M. Ramón Llamas, Luis Martínez-Cortina & Aditi Mukherji, CRC Press Taylor and Francis Group, UK (2009)
Uncertainty Revisited or the Triumph of Hype over Experience in M. Thompson, M. Warburton and T. Hatley “Uncertainty on a Himalayan Scale”, Kathmandu: Himal Books with James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization, Oxford University and International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Vienna, 2007 (with Michael Thompson).
Hype and Hydro (and, at Last) Some Hope in the Himalaya, in “Clumsy Solutions for a Complex World”, Marco Verweij and Michael Thompson (eds), Palgrave/Macmillan Press, Basingstoke (September 2006)
A Cultural Theory Perspective on Environment and Security in Nepal, (with A. Dixit) in Adil Najam (ed) “Environment, Development and Human Security: Perspectives from South Asia”, University Press of America, Lanham, Maryland, 2003.
Transboundary Risk Management in South Asia: A Comparative Example from the Himalaya (with Michael Thompson); chapter in Transboundary Risk Management, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Vienna), Earthscan Publications, London, 2001.
What Makes “Environmentalist” a Southern Pejorative? The Role and Influence of the Social Carriers of Technology, published for the European Academy for the Study of Consequences of Scientific and Technological Advance and the International Human Dimensions Program on Global Environmental Change, by Springer-Verlag, Berlin, in Cross-Cultural Perception of Environment, Bonn, 2003.
Nepal-India Water Resource Relations; chapter in I. William Zartman and the late Jeffrey Z. Rubin (ed) Power and Negotiation, International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Vienna and University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, 2000.
Fractured Institutions and Physical Interdependence: Challenges to Local Water Management in the Tinau River Basin, Nepal, in Moench, M., Caspari, E. and Dixit, A. (eds.) Rethinking the Mosaic – Investigations into Local Water Management, published by Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, Kathmandu and Institute for Social and Environmental Transition, Boulder, Colorado, 1999.
On Governance for Re-engineering City Infrastructure; (with Beck, B. (lead), Thompson, T., Ney, S. and Jeffrey, P.), in the journal of the Institute of Civil Engineers (Engineering Sustainability Volume 164 Issue ES2, July 2011).
Pluralized Water Policy Terrain = Sustainability and Integration, viewpoint in eJournal www.sawasjournal.org Hyderabad: South Asian Water Studies (SAWAS). (2009).
Missing Leg: South Asia’s Hobbled Water Technology Choices, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. XXXVI, no. 39, September 29, 2001, Mumbai.
Institutional Forces Behind Water Conflict in the Ganga Plains; GeoJournal, vol 47 no 3 Kluwer Academic Publishers, Amsterdam, October 1999
Red Star over South Asia; guest editorial on Maoist uprising in South Asia in Himal South Asia, Kathmandu, May/Jun 1997.

Plus regular contribution to the Kathmandu-based Fortnightly SPOTLIGHT over the last five years, (which can be accessed under the ‘opinion’ heading of its website: http://www.spotlightnepal.com/)