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Nearly 70% of India’s 1.2 billion people live in rural areas, many of which face unprecedented water shortages. The job of providing water for the household invariably falls on women, often at the expense of their education, income earning opportunities, social and cultural and political involvement. Although women literally carry water, they are often left out of the decision making process about community water management. Studies from different parts of the country show that water management programmes are more effective if women are included in decision making. The development of effective, sustainable water initiatives in rural India is vital to the country’s future and the empowerment of women. Reliable access to clean water allows Indian women to realize a greater potential in their communities and live fuller lives.
For more than a decade, the Institute of Rural Research and Development (IRRAD) has developed replicable, scalable solutions to the problems that face the villages of India, most notably water scarcity leading to poor availability and access, waste water disposal, poor awareness about safe drinking water, low agricultural productivity and income, and poor local governance. These development models have been developed, tested and implemented in select villages in Mewat, a water-stressed and socioeconomically lagging district of Haryana. To truly make a significant impact, IRRAD is working to take its models to other parts of rural India.
In an effort to begin a focused discussion on tactics and initiatives that have proven their effectiveness in promoting sustainable water access and promote women’s role in water management, sanitation and hygiene in rural Indian villages, the Institute of Rural Research and Development (IRRAD) on Nov 5-6, 2012 organized a National Conference on
The conference featured paper presentations on various themes to share success stories related to women’s leadership role and participation in water management and sanitation in needs assessment, planning, decision making, implementation, monitoring and social audit. Speakers also shared and innovative approaches to elevate women’s dignity and eliminate water related women drudgery; promote equity and inclusion; and build women’s capacity. The conference culminated with discussions of action planning and policy recommendations.
According to IRRAD’s Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Jane Schukoske, “When women are actively involved in planning water management, the community benefits. To lead water management, women need information, confidence and access to decision-making.”
The
The
This session generated a lively discussion with questions on key lessons emerging from the success stories of specific project strategies adopted to secure greater participation and ownership of women. To what extent have gender barriers been overcome remained the larger concern. Any successful project requires women’s participation but that in itself may not ensure that gender barriers are broken. Status quo with respect to gender may even strengthen/worsen in “successful” projects. Hence a need to have a larger framework of–social, cultural, economic and political empowerment of women–remains a key challenge in gender inclusion. Some of these are quantifiable and measurable for gender disaggregated data monitoring, others are not. This has been the feedback from practitioners and activists. Working on social mainstreaming in development projects. It is important feedback – to be able to locate and identify which larger gender barriers have been addressed either by design or by default and what more needs to be done.
Post lunch, the young and enthusiastic theatre team from
The Third Session
The session highlighted the difference in gender approach of supportive donor agencies and of implementing agencies. Implementing agencies offer their ground experience to support donor agencies. The work done in Women’s Development Programme in mid 1980s in Rajasthan and by women’s groups like Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, Utthan and Jagori provides valuable lessons for donor agencies and support organisations. A rooted field based NGO usually has a longer term larger women empowerment focus at odds with short term project approaches. Creating a space for women to express themselves and to slowly take on more decision making responsibilities is a long term empowerment process. Experience of an innovative pilot project funded by DANIDA (Women’s Development Programme, 1986-88) in Rajasthan was instrumental in rural women developing first hand understanding of their own bodies including the reproductive cycle within a caste divided context. This pilot programme involved women activists working closely with village women to develop their agency. It produced excellent material and leadership amongst local women. The programme gave birth to the
The main challenge in large well funded government programmes of drinking water and sanitation is who must deliver women-led water management. The government agencies consisting of engineers of the State Public Health and Engineering (PHED) or Rural Development Department do not have experienced field staff who can undertake water and sanitation programmes with a gender empowerment focus. The government’s awareness-raising approach is commercial marketing focussed Information Education Communication materials including posters, jingles and short films with cricketers and film stars – that have little impact on sustaining behaviour change.
CLTS is one approach to promote sanitation. Whether exclusion and gender are addressed adequately in CLTS is yet to be proven. As a programme approach, CLTS provides sanitation coverage and many programmes including Global Sanitation Fund are using CLTS as a programme approach in Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa.
The first day ended with an open plenary discussion and allowed an opportunity for informal networking and learning for the over 200 delegates present.
The key highlights of the second day were the sessions on capacity building and policy and governance. The speakers talked about the need of capacity building interventions in the water sector for women, who happen to be the key stakeholders of the water resource. IRRAD shared its experience with women’s groups' on water. On the sustainability front, speakers shared how women-led water committees in the villages took charge upon completion of the project by the state government. It was observed that although efforts have been made to bring women into water management, there is still a long way to go for women to become decision makers.
The next session explored Policy and Governance concerns in achieving women-led water management.
In the last session action planning participants were organized into four groups to propose action points for the themes allotted. The themes were as follows:
Each group was led by an expert in the given area.
Group 2 suggested for reservations up to 50% encouraging/promoting women’s participation in programmes, failing which there should be no implementation of the program. There is also a need for social mobilization of women, which includes men to support women, awareness generation, oath taking on special days, and incentives for participation of women. There is a need for capacity building of women and making them role models in the society. There should be more institutions and agencies to empower women that should strive to replicate good models to other areas suiting cultural and geographical context based on a bottom-up approach.
Jane Schukoske (CEO, IRRAD) speaking from the perspective of civil society organisations, observed that there are several next steps for NGOs attending the conference. First, NGOs that do not have gender policies that guide them in involving women at both programmatic and staffing levels may formulate such policies (for example, there can be percentage targets set for women's participation in programmes). Such institutional policy can help shore up greater support for gender in WASH. Second, NGOs can arrange exposure visits to other NGOs which are effectively working with women-led WASH programmes (including the mason training and other women-led WASH construction programmes) so that staff can learn about involvement of women in planning, design, implementation and maintenance of structures. Third, WASH training programmes should be reviewed for comprehensiveness and quality. Speakers featured the importance of including all relevant curricular topics (for example, menstrual hygiene management was a topic omitted from some curricula), gender balance in selecting trainers and participants, inclusive training methods to encourage active participation by women, and the need for training at all levels (e.g., at the block, district, state and central levels), not just grassroots. Fourth, some NGOs should engage with academic institutions on participatory research (seeking research ideas from communities and sharing the research results with them), and arrange for impact analysis of their work. IRRAD has a Rural Research Center that works on both of these aspects. Fifth, the conference brought together organisations that can network in the future to share ideas for conducting policy advocacy and for future conferences. Lastly, we may think of setting up clearing houses of materials by climatic area.
To mark the closing of the conference