Gender and class: Intersectionality in water access and management

From all the previous posts, it is clear that gender impacts access to water and management of water. However, it is not enough to look at gender independently as the inequality occurs on a multidimensional basis – class, race, gender and so on. Therefore, this post will look at how both gender and poverty can impact water inequality. This will be illustrated by discussing the disadvantages faced by poor women; the divide between the urban rich and urban poor; and finally the exclusion of poor men from water management.

What is intersectionality?

Intersectionality is a term coined by the feminist scholar, Kimberlé Crenshaw (Videl, 2014). The approach suggests that gender, race and class are all interconnected and an intersectional approach is needed to understand the marginalisation faced by a disadvantaged group (Jones et al, 2013).

Poor women and sanitation

In low income households, it is usually women who have to suffer the most from the lack of access to adequate water and sanitation. Lack of access to adequate sanitation affects women especially when they are menstruating. They need clean toilets (within close proximity of their homes) and a running supply of water to maintain a good level of privacy and hygiene. The lack of disposal and toilet facilities often discourages girls from attending school (Water Aid, no date). A UNICEF (2003) funded toilet construction project in Mozambique helped create an environment where the girls felt comfortable going to school during their menstruation, with the attendance rising by 11%. Furthermore, it the usually the women who have to fetch the water for the whole family and endure the long queues and heavy loads. Despite the disproportionate burden women from low income backgrounds face, they are still neglected when it comes to decision making and management of water and sanitation services (Mahon and Fernandes, 2010).

Poor urban women

Furthermore, the class inequality is especially evident in urban areas. Africa is one of the fastest urbanising areas in the world, and the African urban population set to grow from 36% to 60% by 2050 (African Development Bank, 2012). As a result, there is increasing proportion of urban poor living in slum settlements, such as Langas in Eldoret, Kenya. The illegal status and lack of organised infrastructure means that these areas suffer from inadequate water supply (Isunji et al, 2011). The study by Insunji et al(2011) found that 89% of people living in Langas slums relied on shallow, unprotected and unlocked wells for water, many of them were not able to use the tap water provided by the local municipal because it was too expensive and sometimes unreliable. This problem is not inclusive to Langas alone. Thomspon et al’s (2000) research of 9 East African-Urban areas with piped facilities found that in poor urban areas such as Karuri, Kenya, residents received only 5-hour service per day, while more affluent areas such as Nairobi in Kenya received a 24-hour service. This highlights the inequality present between poor and rich inhabitants within the same region.

Poor men

There are a disproportionate number of male water managers, compared to women. However, it is important to note that the men usually come from an educated, middle class backgrounds. The planners, engineers and government officials tend to be from these backgrounds. This is perfectly demonstrated by the Ministers of irrigation and water resources in Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, Paul Mayom Akec in South Sudan and Joel Gabuza in Zimbabwe, all of whom are middle class and university educated. While it is easy to assume most of the decisions regarding resource management is made by men, often the voices of poor, unemployed men are often missing (May, 1997). These men are often negatively stereotyped as lazy and deviants. Therefore, it is also important to the understand the inequalities present between men(May,1997)

When examining the inequalities in water access and management, it is no longer enough to consider gender by diving the population into males and females. Their experiences will differ according to their economic background, age, gender and so on. For example, the issues a girl attending public school with limited sanitation facilities will vary drastically from a girl attending school in a private school in the city. Furthermore, often when discussing gender inequality, it often easy to talk about it as a women’s issue but it is also equally important to include marginalised men who are left out from development too.

It’s World Toilet Day!

World toilet day is about raising awareness about the importance of sanitation to health, education and economic productivity. 2.4 billion people around the world live without toilets. In the lecture this week, we discussed sanitation in urban areas, looking specifically at community toilets built and ran by community members. It really highlighted the role the community in create changes in the urban settlements.

Toilet facilities in slums are perceived to be ill maintained and lacking adequate water supply. Slum in general are portrayed as dirty, poor spaces. Majority of the examples portrayed on popular media illustrate this. One well-known example in Slum-dog millionaire, particularly the toilet scene when young Jamal is in a make-shift wooden toilet with a hole that jumps into a pile of shit.

However, such perceptions of the urban poor cannot be generalised to the whole global urban slum population. In fact, Dharavi, where the movie is filmed, makes over $600 million a year through its small and medium sized workshops and factories (Yardley, 2001). This entrepreneurship and innovation has also been extended to sanitation and women play an important role in this.

Over the last 20 years, Mahila Milan have built 6, 952 community toilet blocks for 350,000 people with the help of the Slum Dwellers Association (Patel, 2015). Mahila Milan is a ‘network of poor women's collectives that manage credit and savings activities in their communities’ (SPARC, 2014). The group provides loans for income generation projects, fund community improvement schemes (such as sanitation provisions) and importantly provide a support system for the women (Patel, 2004). The example of Mahila Milan shows the ability to mobilise and create change within their communities.

A lotus grows in the mud

Successful gender-inclusive schemes 

Maria and Richard left some insightful comments on my previous posts regarding the external actors such as NGOs and government agencies and how their roles are important when it comes to including women in water management.

Richard directed me to the following picture:

Photo credit: Grofutures 

This picture is symbolic of many of the water management schemes across Africa – there is evidently lack of women in water management. This post will explore what has been done and can be done by external agents to facilitate participation through financial and educational support. This post will look at a women-led vegetable farming project through the assistance of Lutheran World Relief(LWR) to show what a successful scheme looks like. The vegetable- farming project works with 500 female farmers in Bihar to participate in vegetable farming by teaching them innovative farming techniques, such as using poly-houses that provide perfect conditions for seedlings to grow.

One of the main characteristics of the scheme is effective targeting and prioritization – the project is led by women for women. The supports women in poor women in rural Bihar, including Dalit women who are often marginalized in society. This kind of targeting is important because agriculture is usually seen as masculine and secondly because many women in these communities do not have access to land, and subsequently water rights (see previous post). Such schemes go beyond subsistence farming but provides women with an opportunity to participate in economic activities by selling the vegetables they produce. One particular woman, Sumitra Devi earned 32,000 rupees from farming. When women are earning, they are not financially dependent on their husbands and so have greater bargaining power in the household (Van Koppen, 1998).

Another barrier in when it comes to full and active participation is confidence, especially when speaking public (Mohanty,2002). Through the vegetable farming project women are not only able to participate in farming but also hold group meetings within themselves which gives them a space and time to express their resource needs and build up their knowledge and confidence. One particular quote that is striking from Sumitra is “Before we came together, we used to not have any confidence or abilities to stand up for ourselves. Now we are able to talk to anyone: men, women, government, whoever”. 

In many resource management schemes, women are often reluctant to participate in management because they are fearful of speaking in public and people perceived to be of higher authority – men and government officials, therefore having women only and women-led management meetings will provide them with a platform to voice their opinions. 

Furthermore, while the Lutheran World Relief helps set up the project and assist in the running but it is sustained by community self-help groups (SCH). So the women are given the full control of the scheme, so they are not just participants but managers. The women have set up saving groups within the self-help groups. They use the credit earned by the savings and revolving SHG to setup and maintain micro- enterprises for vegetable farming. Therefore, the women are not fully reliant on their husbands or LWR, therefore further enhancing their confidence and independence.

LWR have replicated similar schemes in other areas, for example shallot production and marketing in Mali. The project provides women training in not only the production on high-yield farming practices but also the marketing of the shallots to maximize the number of sales to increase profit. This resulted in the production of 209 toms of shallots in over 5 years and an increase in individual earning from shallot farming from $55 to $300 per growing season (Lutheran World Relief, 2016).

In conclusion, external actors and organisations can help facilitate inclusive schemes through effective targeting of poor women who may not otherwise have access to land and water rights or women who are not already taking part in economic activities. The external agencies can provide technical support for example through training and educational material. Such participation will then help women feel more confident and independent and so willing and able to take part in community resource management. In addition, these projects need to allow top level, active participation – they should not be mere participants but active managers.

Exclusion of women in irrigation schemes

The aim of this post is to provide a brief insight into women’s water needs for productive activities, such as irrigation, looking beyond the reproductive, domestic activities. The post will begin by exploring women’s need for water for both productive and reproductive activities. Secondly, it will discuss the link between land and water rights. Finally, the major impediments in inclusionary irrigation will be briefly discussed.

Productive and reproductive activities

In many parts of Africa, women are expected to take responsibility for domestic tasks while the males perform the role of breadwinners. Therefore, it is assumed that working in a farm is a masculine job. Men are seen as the main farmers, while women are expected as merely assist as a secondary farmer, in addition to doing the housework (Zwarteveen,1997). So a woman’s interest and need for water is often confined to the domestic domain.  Some agencies may use this narrow focus as a basis for the allocation of water and so help reinforce the idea of women as housekeepers and therefore disregard their potential for production activities (Rathgeber, 1996).

However, women have always used water for both household use and productive farming activities. In many rural female-headed households, women will work in farms as the sole providers for the family. For example, Schaap et al (1994, cited in Van Koppen, 1998) found that widows in Niger relied solely on irrigated faming for their livelihood. Furthermore, in poorer areas where the man’s income is not enough to sustain the family, women are required to work in farms and contribute to the financial running of the household (Van Koppen, 1998). So like men, women also have an interest in accessing an managing water for irrigation

Land and water rights

Another, important factor that hinders women’s participation in productive irrigation activities is women’s lack of land rights. In many countries in Africa, land right is generally a precursor for water right. Women don’t usually own land and when they are involved in farming practices, it is often in their husband’s or fathers land. This puts them in a vulnerable position as any change in position of their relationships (for example, separation or divorce) with her husband could result in her land access being taken away(IFAD,2007). In addition, without land rights, it becomes difficult, if not impossible to get memberships to water user associations or credit for agriculture. As a consequence, women are reduced to a secondary participant with little or no control over water management.

So what can be done?

1)    First and foremost, I feel that it is important to categorise women beyond the domestic sphere and agencies should recognise their potential as productive and effective farmers.

2)    Secondly, effective targeting and prioritising allocation to women-  land and water rights should be allocated on a needs-based analysis Van Koppen, 1998). Furthermore, plots given to women should be the same size as those provide to men In a small-scale rice irrigation schemes in central Burkino Faso, women were given the rights to 0.5 out of 50 land plots (Projet Sensibilisation, 1993).

3)    Furthermore, the number of women on the scheme should be representative of the local population. Secondly, women need to be involved in the decision making process – ensuring these schemes are not only gender aware but participatory (see blog 2).

4)    Women’s land rights should be protected - once land and water rights have been allocated, the women should be provided with legal protection to maintain her rights (IFAD,2007).

5)    Rights for non-land users- irrigation agencies need to extend water rights beyond land owners to include land users to (IFAD,2007)

IFAD, 2007. Gender and water: securing water for improved rural livelihoods. Rome: IFAD.

Projet Sensibilisation et Formation, 1993. Attribution des parcelles aux femmes dans les périmètres en aval des barrages: Possibilités et limites

Projet Sensibilisation et Formation des Paysans Autour Des Barrages, Ouagadougou (1993)

Rathgeber, E., 1996. Women, men, and water-resource management in Africa. Water management in Africa and the Middle East: Challenges and opportunities. Rached E., Rathgeber EM and Brooks D.(eds). International Development Research Center, Ottawa, Canada, pp.49-69.

Van Koppen, B., 1998. Water rights, gender, and poverty alleviation. Inclusion and exclusion of women and men smallholders in public irrigation infrastructure development. Agriculture and Human Values, 15(4), pp.361-374.

Zwarteveen, M.Z., 1997. Water: From basic need to commodity: A discussion on gender and water rights in the context of irrigation. World development, 25(8), pp.1335-1349.