What limits women from participating in water management?

Figure 1: Africa's Gender Equality Index: https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/African_Gender_Equality_Index_2015-EN.pdf  (Accessed on 21 December 2018)

Spaces of Exclusion in Community Water Governance

In this week’s blog, I set out to examine women’s participation in formally created decision-making spaces for managing domestic water in rural areas and some of the obstacles to the participation of women in such spaces. Shown through various studies the participation of women in decision making spaces is limited, and not just in water but in industry, agriculture and trade. Whilst there are some improvements in involving women in committee decision making (as shown in my previous blog), the vast majority of women are still excluded from decision making in management systems and resource allocation, both for domestic and productive purposes, even though women are key users and collectors of water, they should be encouraged to serve as operators of the system since they are the ones who suffer most if the system fails (World Bank, 1995).

Figure 1 shows Africa's gender equality index, showing Mauritius, Rwanda and South Africa as the top 3 countries with a high gender equality index. Libya, Mali, Somalia, Botswana amongst others are in need of more reforms to promote gender equality.  

Challenges to Participation of women in Water Management

Women rarely occupy leadership positions, even when husbands and families are supportive. So why is it that many women are reluctant to take up positions of power in community water management committees?

Harmful social norms and gender stereotypes

The negative stereotypical views on female leadership being too soft or unwise by the wider community is an obstacle to woman’s access to power and decision making in Africa. Social norms and stereotypes such as ‘’a women’s place is in the home’’ or ‘’women are not physically or emotionally stronger than men’’ allows men to control women’s life and choices and restricts the opportunities women see for themselves. 

In addition to this, socio-cultural factors affect women in decision making. Most woman are likely to get married at a young age, having limited scope for further education and thus, limiting their access to leadership. Women and girls also often face sexual harassment in public spaces, reducing their ability to participate in education, work and in leadership roles. Especially, in rural local communities, socio-cultural norms that hinder women’s access to power and decision making are more pronounced (Oseri-Afful, 2014). Such norms, for instance do not find competitive politics and power to be an appropriate arena for women, gender role stereotyping is very much a reality and limits the aspirations of females.

Whilst some women are involved in participation in village committees, participation is often passive and has limited scope to develop due to the time restraints and large burdens of responsibilities women already have as the manager of their household.

Achieving Participation

In order to achieve participation, local communities need to address the socio-cultural challenges through education programs and break the limiting cultural barriers. Education programmes targeting and addressing the traditional stereotypes of women, finding ways to emphasise the principles of equal opportunities and capabilities of both men and women should also be embedded from an early age in schools.

Programmes need to also help women realise their potential to take up positions in committees, highlighting their key skills and finding ways to split their work load and domestic work load in a time efficient manner. Therefore, with time women’s passive participation in decision making meetings could ultimately develop into active participation.

References

Adams, E, A. et al. (2018). ‘’Spaces of Exclusion in community water governance: A Feminist political Ecology in gender and participation in Malawi’s Urban User Associations.’’ Geoforum 95 pp. 133-143.

African Development Bank. (2015). ''Empowering African Women: an Agenda for Action.'' Available at:  https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/African_Gender_Equality_Index_2015-EN.pdf. (Accessed on 21 December 2018). 

Christiana, G, M et al. (2017). ‘’Women and Rural Water Management: Token Representatives or Paving the Way to Power?’’ Water Alternatives 10.1.

Oseri-Afful, R. (2014). ‘’Women’s access to power and decision-making in Africa: addressing obstacles and offering solutions.’’ The Southern Voices Network: Research Paper No. 5.

Unilever. ‘’Opportunities for Women: Challenging harmful social norms and gender stereotypes to unlock women’s potential.’’ Available at https://www.unilever.com/Images/unilever-opportunities-for-women_tcm244-500987_en.pdf. (Accessed on 22 December 2018).