Why do some behaviours change more easily than others?Water-use behaviour interventions in rural Nepal

Water-sector development is inevitably based on changes in people’s behaviour. We analyse why some types of domestic water-use behaviours change more easily than others. Our case study is a water supply and sanitation intervention in remote and rural Nepal. We found that collective opportunities, degree of individual freedom, and individual incentives influenced the ease of the promoted behaviour changes. The enhanced individual opportunities, incentives, and collective tolerance enabled behaviour changes that were regarded as beneficial by the people themselves, whereas the existing social traditions in our case-study context often restricted those changes. Often, the individual agency and the collective traditions confronted one another. We suggest that this study can provide a design for predicting possible opportunities and challenges regarding behaviour changes in field operations, and for enhancing joint operation of individual and collective capabilities at local levels in the development intervent...