Water, Gender and Poverty Alleviation

Water and poverty alleviation key messages:

1. Productive use of water at the household level by poor women and men reduces poverty
2. People require more than their domestic water needs to be productive
3. Productive use enhances the sustainability of water supply systems and services
4. People need local solutions and multiple sources for multiple uses
5. An integrated approach is essential to achieve significant impacts on poverty.

Short case studies:

Ambuya Mukwereza was a former employee of a Zimbabwe Forestry Commission nursery where she learnt how to grow saplings of fruit trees like orange, guava and plums. Now an elderly lady, she has only been able to make the best of this knowledge after she was helped to dig a well at her homestead and install a rope pump by the NGO PumpAid. She runs a thriving business selling saplings to other families who have family wells and want to grow fruit trees.

In Tarata (Cochabamba, Bolivia) disputes came fatally to a head in December 2002, over the rights to use water for household level productive uses from a multiple-purpose water supply dam (Laka Laka). The dam was planned to provide water for farmers growing vegetables and to meet the basic needs of domestic users, but not for productive water uses at the household level. When the urban population demanded the right to also use water for growing vegetables around homesteads, there were violent conflicts with farmers determined to protect their irrigation water rights. Rocio Bustamante, Centro-Agua

Source: Responding to poverty: promoting productive uses of water at the household level, advocacy statement 2003 from the Symposium on Water, poverty and the productive uses of water at the household level held in Johannesburg, South Africa, 21-23 January 2003. http://www.irc.nl/page/8039 

Making all water uses the business of women and men

Everybody, men, women and children must help manage and share water fairly. Conflicts over ‘troubled waters’ - sometimes too much, too little or too polluted - must be avoided. They harm people, food production, nature, the environment, and sustainable development in general.

“Women in the Visayayas in the Philippines reported that their views are increasingly met with respect and their needs met with regard to time of meetings, design of water supply and design of latrines”. World Water Vision, 1999

Research and practical experience from the Gender and Water Alliance (GWA) have demonstrated that effective, efficient and equitable management of the available water is only achieved when both women and men are involved in making decisions on how to best share, supply and protect water.

A gender sensitive approach shows that women and men have distinctive roles and responsibilities in water. Striking a gender balance ensures that:

• Old and new roles and responsibilities of all women and men are mobilised tobest effect for the well-being of all;
• The creativity, energy and knowledge of both sexes contribute to making water schemes and eco-systems work better; and
• The benefits and costs of water use accrue equitably to all groups.

Explaining mainstreaming gender to water professionals

“I encourage the (male) engineers to look at the impact that each decision will have on the lives of men, women and children in the watershed community. What I say to them is, disaggregate all information and data you collect by men, women and children. Break down the project into components and activities to be implemented and look at the differential impact on men, women and children. When you do this, you can easily see and understand gender differences. Project components can then be planned to address the different needs, bringing in much-needed flexibility to implementation.” 

Vasudha Pangare, National Standing Committee for Watershed Development and Water Resources Management, Government of India

Gender is a key variable when we look at economic activities, at income generation in general and farming in particular. In sanitation women are the main beneficiaries of improved latrine use and hygiene promotion close to the home. They are responsible for the hygiene of the family. In a number of countries they are also earning money by producing and selling latrine parts.

Remember gender

The links between gender, poverty and water are easiest to identify when we look at domestic water use and sanitation practices. Gender is also a key variable when we look at economic activities, at income generation in general and farming in particular. Men and women should be equally represented when decisions are made that affect productive activities they are engaged in to assure equal access and control over water, land and markets. Poor men and women are often the first to suffer when the aquatic environment is degraded.

“Sometimes women-specific support is needed to empower local women to take up leadership roles, but more often training of water experts and policy makers will be justified in order to guide them to work in a gender-inclusive manner.”

Ms Eveline Herfkens, Minister for Development Cooperation (until 2003), The Netherlands.