Problem statement
The proposed programme starts from the following problem statement.
In South Asia, as elsewhere, a paradigm shift in water resources management policy and practice is in the making and partly happening that can be summarized with the label ‘integrated water resources management’. ‘Integration’ refers to a broad and diverse agenda. It includes issues like inter-sect oral water resources use/competition, institutional transformation/bureaucratic reform towards less segmented structures, stakeholder participation in policy, planning and implementation towards inclusive forms of governance, interdisciplinary analysis and modeling and the incorporation of rural development and empowerment perspectives in water resources management. All South Asian governments have endorsed the concept of IWRM and incorporated it into their general policy statements in some form or another.

The regional evolution and elaboration of the IWRM concept in South Asia requires a regional knowledge base and a regional human resources base. It is observed that as far as the ‘integration’ and ‘interdisciplinarity’ issues are concerned, there are huge gaps in the South Asian knowledge and human resource base. A very major gap exists as far as gender and water issues are concerned: in terms of both female participation in the water resources sector, and knowledge and research on gender and water issues. At the same time there is a substantial number of local initiatives, institutions and persons in the region waiting, as it were, to be ‘mainstreamed’.

The main focus in a human capacity building programme on IWRM and gender and water issues in South Asia should therefore be:

to strengthen existing initiatives and institutions working on integration and interdisciplinary regarding water resources development and management ( social carriers of the paradigm shift);

to network and support these initiatives and institutions at the regional level to generate critical mass;

provide links with and inputs from the international IWRM and water resources knowledge and human resources base to make maximum use of already available knowledge and capacity. These things should be achieved in collaboration with organizations in the different South Asian countries that work on water resources issues from an IWRM and interdisciplinary perspective.

Main elements of the programme
The proposed programme duration is 5 years. It consists of five components. These have been discussed with the envisaged partner institutions, further elaborated, and translated into an implementation plan (project proposal). A fair degree of variation among the different institutions in the way the programme should be optimally implemented is expected. 

Ideally these components should also have a training/short courses component for in-service water sector professionals. This needs further study and discussion, as there is substantial activity already happening or being initiated in this field.

Regional South Asia building network on IWRM and gender and water.
This component will provide a series of trainings, workshops, seminars, summer/winter schools and master classes for M.Sc. and Ph.D. candidates involved in the programme, at the regional South Asia level. Inviting policy makers and implementers to participate will also utilize these events to interface with the policy domain. One anticipated outcome of the discussions at the capacity building/policy interface is the development of national gender and water action plans.