Dr. Manohara Khadka, Country Representative of International Water Management Institute (IWMI) Nepal highlighted that solarization of food systems and groundwater irrigation holds immense promise for food security. She said that the tools that support governments, the private sector and practitioners are scare.

Participated by various individuals from Nepal’s development partners, NGOs and the government officials, one day Workshop for Solar Pump Sizing Tool Scaling in Nepal concluded discussing various ways.

“The main goal of this workshop is to create a tailored innovation package for the Solar Pump Planning tool in Nepal, with the aim of facilitating its scaling,” said Dr. Khadka.

Shilp Verma, Senior researcher at IWMI- India presents the experiences of the Solar Irrigation Pump sizing tool from India.

According to IWMI, this workshop is part of the NEXUS Gains research initiative, which aims to realize multiple benefits across water, energy, food and ecosystems in selected transboundary river basins, by leading global nexus thinking and providing tools, guidelines, training and facilitation for analysis and research for development.

Solarization of food systems and of groundwater irrigation holds immense promise for food security, income generation and climate resilience in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. However, tools that support governments, the private sector, and practitioners to identify where and how to solarize irrigation are scarce. NEXUS Gains is supporting the development, refinement, replication, and scaling of solar sizing tools for use by planners and investors, including farmers themselves, to make the solar promise a reality.

For India, IWMI has developed a tool that estimates the irrigation water requirements based on crop geographic area. IWMI is seeking to adapt this tool for Nepal now, complementing another tool that aids local government officials to estimate the size and costs of solar water pumping systems (SWP). The latter tool is under development by GIZ Nepal’s Promotion of Solar Technologies for Economic Development (POSTED) and it envisages combining both tools to reduce planning failures and lead to more judicious budget allocations for SWP systems at the local level.

The primary objective of this workshop is to design a context-specific innovation package for the Solar Pump Planning tool in Nepal to facilitate scaling. In this workshop, participants will engage in a series of interactive sessions to analyze and improve the scaling potential of the Solar Pump Planning tool. The agenda covers various aspects of innovative packaging, including identifying barriers, challenges, enablers, and solutions.

Attendees will participate in plenary presentations, discussions, and breakout group work to deepen their understanding of innovation readiness and use assessments. By the end of the workshop, participants will have a clearer sense of the emerging innovation package and be able to identify priority next steps for scaling the innovation effectively.