1. Gender Equity a Concern for Water Management
Stories abound about the relationship between water and the feminine principle, connecting the life-bestowing power of water with the sacrifices women make during times of water scarcity.
Women’s role is multiple at household as well as in the community. So, it is increasingly felt to involve women in water resources management.
Participatory approaches facilitated by Govt. and NGOs recognize women as farmers in community irrigation, involve them in decision making in water resources development and management.
To maintain sustainability of these initiatives, acknowledgement of diverse needs of women and men in relation to water and importance of linking access to water with other livelihood concerns (agriculture, health, social security, micro-credit, and non-farm income generating opportunities).

2. Understanding Gender in Context of Water Management
Land is own by men. They should be the members of water users’ association. Women are rarely involved in irrigation. Family benefits from greater agricultural productivity.
Such a conception overlooks women’s farmers role in irrigation.
Agricultural development together with the technology in USA and in other countries has been done without taking into consideration of women participation and involvement.
There is misguided understanding that households are unitary units and everyone has access to and benefits from resources equally.
It is also assumed that communities are homogenous, have collective interest in irrigation.
Water entitlements of the landless and other marginalized groups are ignored.
In such a situation, a single landless ultra poor woman will face several layers of exclusion and will loose the ability to obtain food security for herself and her dependants.

3. Understanding Gender in Context of Water Management
More than 1billion people are deprived of access to water with sufficient quantity and quality.
Poor women are particularly affected. It is women who bear the daily burden of hauling heavy buckets of water from long distance to meet family needs.
Water has never been a “free good” for poor women.
Meeting multi-faceted water needs of poor men and women should be a priority in water policy at international, national, basin, and community levels.
Gender equality and women’s empowerment are essential to poverty eradication and comprehensively links to gender equity, poverty and water deprivation.
Involving 30% women in WUA may not mean actual participation in water decisions or challenge the gendered drudgery of water collection.
In most cultures, men and women have different roles, rights, and responsibilities in the use and management of water. And likely, there are different priorities for the development of water resources.
It is necessary to understand the underlying gender relations for effective involvement of women and men in development work.
Gender relations are dynamic with conflict and co-operation and are mediated by other axes of stratification.

4. The incorporation of gender perspectives into water resources management strategies require attention to the complex relationship between productive and domestic uses of water resources, to the importance of participation in decision making for all, and to the equitable distribution of benefits from improved infrastructures and management systems.” (SIDA, 1997)

5. Women in Water Management – A Global Agenda
In 1981, the UN launched the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation decade, which recognized that despite technological advances, 25% of urban poor and at least 70% of rural population in the South had no access to adequate drinking water.
The decade focused attention on the need for small-scale, decentralized, community-based approaches relying on local skills/knowledge and people’s participation in the implementation and management of water related infrastructures, supplementing govt. efforts which were unable to reach the majority.
The changing role of the state from private to facilitator leaded to larger structural reform processes giving a greater role to the market for efficient resource allocation.
Thus by early 1990s, with water scarcity reaching a crisis in many countries, emerging policy consensus on water was reiterated with the following:
Restructuring of institutions: the state as promoter and facilitator of WRD,
Financial efficiency in relation to water use and provision through cost recovery from users: water is no longer a free good.
Decision-making at the lowest appropriate level: community participation and decentralized management as the key to sustainable and equitable services.

6. Women in Water Management – A Global Agenda
Reviews of the achievements of the decade, first in New Delhi (1990) and then in Dublin (1992) acknowledged the role of women in water management, particularly at the level of household and also increasingly at community level.
The Dublin statement adds that there is a need “to equip and empower” women so that they can participate in water management more effectively.
Agenda 21 of United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro, 1992), re-emphasises the need for women’s participation in water management policy making and implementation.
World Bank’s policy on Water Resources Management (1993) also noted the importance of understanding gender as an analytical construct.
Subsequent international forums on development ‘Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 1994; Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen, 1995; on women’s issues ‘Fourth World Conference on Women, Beiing, 1995; have focused on the disadvantaged position of women and children in the context of environmental degradation.

7. Women in Water Management – A Global Agenda
The conceptualization of women as privileged water managers is rooted in the essentialism of ‘eco-feminism’ which tends to position women as natural caretakers of the environment because of their childbearing and nurturing roles.
Women play an important role in household water and food security. Overlooking the diverse material relationship of women may be problematic.
For the most part of programme and project level experience of involving women have been seen as beneficiaries rather than partners.
Participation is often reduced to ‘labour utilization’, while ‘consultation with community’ generally signifies consultation with men as head of households and community leaders. Women have little voice in water resources planning in this country.
Overview of gender equity in water policy discourse, the rest slides will outline the gender differentiated uses, priories, rights, and roles in the development and management of water resources.

8. Gender Dimension of Water Use and Management
Gender Division of Labour: i) Productive Work and ii) Reproductive Work.
i) Productive Work
Water for production: Both women and men use water for productive purposes for 1) subsistence, 2) rain-fed agriculture, 3) irrigation for cash crops, 4) livestock (animal husbandry, diary farming, etc.
Women also work in numerous small-scale enterprises on varying types of water like brackish water for aquaculture, soft water for dying and block printing, etc.
Many other economic activities use water fro production like aquaculture development and fisheries on marine and inland are less documented gender dimensions.
Women in fishing communities are also involved in number of tasks such as marketing, making and mending nets, fish processing, and so on.
Access to water is vital for sustainable livelihoods security, and interventions that change the control, use of and access to water resources inevitably raise gender equity issues and opportunities.

9. Gender Dimension of Water Use and Management
Reproductive Work:
Water Collection for household/domestic needs – In most poor rural and urban communities, women and girls are responsible for collecting water for drinking needs including those of livestock, cooking, cleaning, health and hygiene. These work fall in the sphere of reproductive work and they are unaccounted and unpaid. Though this job is known worldwide as one of the time-consuming and arduous tasks.
When young girls are involved in water collection or looking after young siblings at home, it has an impact on their access to education, and their self development.
Socio-economic status of th household, age, marital status, cultural factors such as seclusion and household composition – all affect a woman’s water related work.
In a joint or extended family, the heaviest burden tends fall on daughter-in-law.
The Care Economy: Health, Hygiene and Sanitation
- Family health is also viewed as a female responsibility – women bear the main burden of caring for those who are ill (water-borne diseases kill 3.4 million people annually, mostly children.
The lack of accessible sanitation coupled with limited privacy, and in many conflict-prone areas, the fear of rape or harassment affects girls or women the most.
Hygiene education to promote the adoption of better sanitation practices (household or community latrines instead of open defecation) and to mitigate the impact of waterborne diseases is currently directed at women, with little attention being paid to the roles and responsibilities of men in families.

10. Access to and Control of Water Resources
Access to water resources is mediated by a range of social and technical relations or property regimes, which include the following:
Private ownership of land and the ability to pump water out
Common property access
Open access
State or NGO provided water infrastructure
Market access – purchase of water from a well-owner or a water tanker, or paying for a household water connectionand water delivery services.
Essentially, water pricing adopts the ‘household’ as the unit of analysis, overlooking conflicts of interest and preferences within household.
Water is an inherently mobile and transitory resources, rights to water are defined around access to and use of water over time, rather than ownership of a particular unit of water.
Social fields are complex – typically, external agencies (govt. irrigation dept., donors, NGOs) make investments in water infrastructures, but are not themselves the users.
Women may gain some resources rights for their household through involvement of construction work (labour contribution), but they are largely excluded from water user groups by political nexus of local male elites and project bureaucracies. In irrigation project, they are excluded based on land ownership. But they are sometimes excluded due to social recognition that it is the male head who represents the interest of household as a whole.

11. Gendered Priorities for Water Resources Development
Gender needs and interests are typically categorized into two areas:
Practical Gender Needs (PGN): are linked to daily condition of women’s lives, their immediate environment, workload, and responsibilities.
Access and availability of drinking water is a critical PGN for women, and relatively straightforward to provide , but it is unlikely on its own to change gender inequalities underlying who collects water. Many water projects were designed to reduce the drudgery of women’s work, but in fact, they increase their workload.
- Strategic Gender Interests (STI): seek to challenge the disadvantaged position of women in society relative to men in terms of labour, power, and control over resources. They are not readily identifiable, and vary acco0rding to particular contexts and the roles, rights, and responsibilities of different groups of women. In relation to water, the most critical SGI is the articulation of water rights as distinct from land rights. Water rights seek to provide poor, marginalized and landless women with access to water for livelihood needs. In addition, other factors have a bearing on the articulation of SGIs; technological options, capacity building of women water users to manage community water resources and their collective organizations to negotiate access to water resources.

12. Gendered Priorities for Water Resources Development
Technological Choice
Water in its natural form is seldom suitable for human use – infrastructure or technology is needed to deliver the right quantity of surface water, groundwater, or rainwater to the right place at the right time.
Women’s relationship with water technology has been mixed. They may find job in a large project during construction period, but it does not translate to their rights to water.
Women are often not involved from the beginning, nor on equal wages with men unless there are other mediating social actors.
Moreover, women are often not consulted about different technical portions, the costs involved, or where water infrastructure is directly going to benefit them should be located or how it should be designed.
On the other hand, some technological innovations such as treadle pumps have benefited women farmers in water-rich areas, and the use of various types of drip irrigation technologies have enabled women in water-scarce areas to expand their basket of livelihood options.

13. Gendered Priorities for Water Resources Development
Capacity Building
Training women to use, adopt and manage different water and sanitation technologies is essential not only for efficient and effective use but also for its potential to question gender roles and identities and challenge social exclusion norms.
A number of water and sanitation programs train men and women in community management and impart new skills.
However, many questions still persist regarding timing, content and the pedagogy of such programs.
The need for resource material, gender-sensitive facilitators familiar with the local language and appropriate follow-up initiatives to sustain learning are critical.

14. Gendered Priorities for Water Resources Development
Ability to Participate in Community Water Institutions
-”…..control over water signals social organizations. A community that cannot hold on to its water resources probably cannot do much else,”
Drawing on various concepts of participation, Agarwal (2001) outlines six different forms or levels typifying varying degrees of participation in a hierarchical “ladder” moving upwards towards more effective and empowering participation.

15. Gendered Priorities for Water Resources Development
Water as a Human Right
To enable the identification of minimum water requirements and allocations for all individuals, communities, and nations
To help set priorities for water policy such that meeting the basic water requirements of all human beings should take priority over other water management and investment decisions.
To emphasize governments’ obligation to ensure access and to provide international and national support towards efforts to give and protect access to clean water.