Alan Nicol
Principal Researcher
Areas of expertise
Rural development Transboundary river basins Political economy Water and developmentHead of Water Policy Programme at ODI, Research Fellow at IDS and Director, GWI East Africa at CARE.
Current projects
Latest news for Alan Nicol
World Water Congress 2025
In an interview on the 2025 World Water Congress in Morocco, IWMI's Youssef Brouziyne and Alan Nicol highlight the importance of collaboration for sustainable water management ...
Addis Ababa tackles rising flood risk
For Addis Ababa’s 3.5 million residents, floods regularly endanger livelihoods. IWMI and city officials have co-developed a dashboard to mitigate risks and improve emergency response ...
Science and policy work together to advance food security in Lao PDR
Lao PDR’s national Policy Think Tank partners with IWMI to strengthen officers’ research skills, empowering them to design agricultural policies that are rooted in science and evidence ...
A glass half full? Facing up to our water futures
Alan Nicol gave a TEDx Talk on collective action approaches in responding to the unprecedented series of risks and threats facing the global commons ...
Digital inequality – A challenge to climate risk responses in Pakistan?
In a flood emergency, access to the ‘digital ecosystem’ provided by mobile devices can be critical for individual safety, but not everyone has equal access ...
It’s time to reset our approach to the global water crisis
Alan Nicol explains that old assumptions about systems, markets and individuals need to give way to ideas of collective action, equality and social justice ...
Climate crisis and water stress create a perfect storm for women
We need radical collaborations for gender-just climate solutions ...
Water’s Fundamental Truths: Part 3 – Is water governance coming of age?
Our planetary water systems involves not just tackling risks and building resilience for human societies, but also assuming greater responsibility towards the planet as a whole ...
Choosing the collective: Challenging conventional ideas of women’s leadership
Lessons emerging from our research shows that collectives allow bonding and connections through identities other than gender, enabling significant change in entrenched gender-power relations ...
Everything you need to know about water and migration
Often, migration is a development problem being solved by people using their own agency, and this should be better reflected in policy responses at all levels ...
Untangling ‘knots of inequality’
IWMI’s newly launched Gender and Inclusion Strategy tackles how gender intersects with a range of social disparities ...
The pandemic is laying bare a global water crisis
In an op-ed on Foreign Policy, Alan Nicol argues insufficient water for washing is likely to worsen the coronavirus in the poorest nations — but there’s a better way forward ...
Latest publications by Alan Nicol
Brief
Applying citizen science to water security challenges in Ethiopia: a structured approach
International Water Management Institute | March 3rd, 2025
Journal Article
Does a citizen science approach enhance the effectiveness of flood early warning systems? Evidence from the Akaki Catchment, Ethiopia
Ubiquity Press | February 4th, 2025
Report
Framing policy coherence toward improving climate-adaptive water productivity in Egypt
International Water Management Institute (IWMI). CGIAR Initiative on National Policies and Strategies | December 31st, 2024
