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Looks at the gender dimension of water management
Introduction
Gender equality is understood as the situation where women and men enjoy the same status and have equal rights, responsibilities, and opportunities for realizing their full human rights and potential. It implies equal access to and control over resources by women and men (CIDA, 1999; http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/conceptsandefinitions.htm, accessed 20 October 2007). Women's empowerment is defined as identifying and redressing power imbalances in order to give women more autonomy to manage their own lives (http://www.unfpa.org/gender/empowerment.htm, accessed 20 October 2007). It requires social, economic, political, and legal empowerment (CIDA, 1997).
Programme effectiveness
Since the 1970s and 1980s, women's involvement in water management has been considered crucial to improving programme and project effectiveness due to women's considerable roles, concerns and priorities in water management.
A study by the IRC in 88 communities in 15 countries and a desk study of 121 World Bank-financed projects show that women's involvement is the key for effective community water projects (Van Wijk-Sijbesma, 1998; http://www.irc.nl/page/37271, accessed 20 October 2007). This is confirmed by various case studies compiled by the Gender and Water Alliance (GWA), UN agencies, and others (Shrestha, 2002; GWA and UNDP, 2006; UN OSAGI, 2006). Most water conferences have called for the incorporation of a gender perspective into water policies and programmes as well (GWA, 2003; Khosla and Pearl, 2003). Major international declarations on gender equality emphasize the importance of water access to gender equality (UN, 1996 and http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/text/econvention.htm#article14, accessed 20 October 2007).
For many organizations, the effectiveness and efficiency of programmes and projects is currently the most important reason to incorporate a gender perspective (GWA, 2003). This is not to say that all water policies, programmes, and projects meaningfully address women's roles, concerns, and priorities in water management. Many projects and policies pay lip-service only, while others explicitly promote an approach that excludes some women (Cleaver, 2003). Most water programmes and projects that address gender concerns focus on women's domestic roles and related concerns for drinking water and sanitation, while women's water concerns and priorities for food security and environmental sustainability receive less attention. Even more so, most organizations focus on either domestic or productive roles. When not realizing how women's concerns in the different sectors influence each other, this undermines the...