Female Participation In Water Management

 While my previous entry concluded that more women should be involved in decision-making processes, it did not explore this in practise, which this post aims to do: interrogating what female participation entails, and what challenges obstruct its implementation.

Considering water resource management as the process of optimising water sources in relation to three policy principles: equity, ecological integrity and efficiency, it intrinsically links to gender through the first of these, ensuring equal access to safe water for all. For example, gender inequalities  within society contributing to discrimination, abuse and exclusion, mean female voices are often silenced during decision-making processes, and their water needs are overlooked.

Legislative frameworks such as The South African Vision recognising this, extend core principles from the 1998 National Water Act to encompass the following aim: ‘facilitate effective stakeholder participation at all levels’ with regards to water management. But what does meaningful participation actually look like?

Figure 1: Female decision makers in Southern Africa 

Source: Rhoda Osei-Afful (2014).

In contrast to interventionist approaches, participatory development includes local stakeholders in decision-making processes which affect them, recognising that large-scale, infrastructural schemes often fail when ignoring the local context in which they are embedded. In South Africa, participatory development blossomed in the post-apartheid era, owing to increased democracy. Yet, this proved to support the notion that participation, when applied incorrectly, can be tyrannous. Tyrannical approaches hamper developmental efforts by reinforcing existing inequalities in the presence of asymmetrical power structures, instead of transforming them.

This can occur when power relations within communities are ignored. For example, gender strongly influences a person’s ability to participate, as illustrated in Figure 2:-

Obstacle To Participation	Explanation
Domestic duties	Women committed to household duties often have little time to volunteer.
Language and literacy	Women tend to finish education earlier than men, meaning their language and literacy skills are comparatively poor,  influencing their ability to communicate.
Social pressure	Women may be hesitant to voice concern, because being ‘overly vocal’ is a culturally undesirable trait for women, dampening marriage prospects.
Patriarchal norms	In some cultures, women are deemed inferior to men to the extent where a male relative must speak on their behalf. This may inhibit a woman's confidence to express herself, owing to a fear of reprisal and embarrassment.

Figure 2: A table illustrating a glimpse into the obstacles which women face, regarding participatory development.

These obstacles can limit a project’s success, to the extent of failure, when female knowledge is excluded, owing to their often superior expertise as water managers in the domestic sphere.

Therefore, inclusion of women in participatory development must adopt a gender sensitive approach in order to be meaningful. Recognising that obstacles to participation between men and women differ is essential, before attempts to dismantle them are made. Gurung et al. propose several strategies in support of this, as I have expanded upon in Figure 3:-

Strategy	Explanation
Meeting in separate groups.	Separating women from men, and working in small groups, aims to build confidence through exercising collaborative power.
Meeting at an appropriate time.	This is crucial to ensure the full and active participation of women.
Meeting at an appropriate place.	Women may feel uncomfortable meeting in the public sphere, as this is open to the intrusion of men. It is important to choose a location where women feel unafraid to voice their views.
Utilising local languages	To enhance participation, meetings should be conducted in a language everyone understands.
Employing gender-sensitive training	With improved education and technical expertise equivalent to men, women may feel less insecure to participate, and more inclined to adopt leadership roles in water management.  This must be done in tandem with educating men; raising awareness of the importance of including women in water management, to minimise hostile and emotional resistance from dominant members of the community who feel they are losing out. Facilitators must be made aware of the gendered micro-politics of a community before they intervene, to utilise the most appropriate tools and techniques for the context they are working in.

Figure 3: A table evidencing some solutions in response to Figure 2.

Building upon my previous article, this indicates that including women in decision-making processes is not enough. Gender-specific approaches must be additionally utilized to help make participation meaningful, emphasising inclusivity above all. This provides a step to realise national aims onto a local level, tackle gender inequalities and beckon cultural change.