Where we stand in the struggle for gender awareness

The Gender and Water Alliance has come to an important point in its existence. Of the five years of our second phase we have now completed three. This is a good time to reflect on what we have learnt and how we will apply this. Many of the activities planned for this phase have been executed, and in many cases we have achieved more than we planned – for example in training of trainers (ToT), case-studies, a resource guide in a range of languages, the website in an increased number of languages, and regionalisation in 10 regions, with increasing space for their own selection of outputs. GWA is often invited to speak at events or asked to contribute to international meetings and is getting recognition for our work of integrating the social aspects into the technical aspects of water management. GWA is currently revising the ToT manual and developing new modules.

There also is another side to the coin, one less euphoric. Decision making in water management is still largely in the hands of men, and poor women’s access to water and toilets, in most countries does not seem to be increasing at a tempo necessary to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These two aspects are directly connected: without taking gender and people’s diversity into account, large investments in infrastructure are inefficient and don’t have their planned impact. The number of water taps and toilets are counted, but for various social and cultural reasons, many are not used. Unequal power relations persist, meaning that new facilities end up in the hands of the better off, instead of contributing to poverty reduction. Ignoring the different needs and knowledge of women and men makes these efforts less effective. Corruption also absorbs a large, albeit unknown percentage of the huge amounts put aside for water and sanitation hardware. If all the money was to be spent as envisaged, many lives would be saved and poverty would be strikingly reduced.

GWA’s work is to increase consciousness regarding the social aspects of water management, but we have our limits, even with lots of capable members. Capacity building needs substantial funds worldwide. Donors, even though they often have a gender policy, seem to prefer to spend large sums on hardware and on generic water organisations, which seem to pay lip service to gender mainstreaming. It is estimated that 20% of all expenditure in development is needed for training and capacity building (not only for gender), but a lot of this is siphoned of to a variety of other activities. GWA’s regional and training workshops situation analysis shows that the greatest need is for awareness raising and capacity building regarding cultural and gender relations. However, it is still the case internationally that the least resources are made available for gender training. To show donors that GWA fulfils a need and that our training material is valued, it is of great importance that you inform GWA if you use GWA materials.

It is crucial to select trainers carefully, if capacity building activities are to be sustainable. To ensure that knowledge, skills and awareness, are internalised, used and passed on, candidates for GWA training have to write a concept note about their gender knowledge and the way they will use the training. Our training makes participants think for themselves about local power relations and how these obstruct poor people’s access to and control over water for all uses.

GWA, together with partners and to meet demand by members, is planning more training workshops at a large scale. For example training of trainers of local and regional institutes is starting in January with UN-Habitat’s Lake Victoria WatSan programme. GWA is also developing a longer, more academic course in Gender in Water Management together with the Asian Institute for Technology, later to be regionally adapted with a number of universities.

Let’s all try, members of GWA and partner organisations, to contribute to awareness raising about gender and social aspects of water management. Those readers of Source who need support with this, are welcome to address and involve GWA.

The Secretariat wishes you all increasing success with gender mainstreaming in your work throughout 2009.

Joke Muijlwijk