ADB Workshop on Water and Poverty
I was in the working group on, “Improved Access to Quality Service- Domestic Supply”. The Group was chaired by Mr. Quamrul Islam Siddique – President of the Institute of Engineers of Bangladesh and moderated by Ms. Belinda Calaguas of WaterAid, U.K.
The working group took place in two sessions on the afternoons of the 22nd and the 23rd.
The working group consisting of 25 people, of whom 5 were women, began with considerable confusion as to the focus of the session, the expected outcomes, and the way to proceed. After much discussion it was agreed that since there were such diverse experiences in the session, it would be difficult to focus on key areas that would be common to all. Thus, in the end, a representative of each country gave an outline of their water policy. I took this opportunity to request each country to also speak to how a gender perspective in the water sector was being addressed in each of their countries. I underlined what is commonly known - that in most households and particularly poor ones, it is women who are water managers.
Thus, could they speak to how poor women and men were being engaged in policy making and in the implementation of water programmes. There was general agreement on this. However, in their presentations no country addressed how a gender analysis was informing either policy or practice. A comment was made by the representative from Nepal about how it was a requirement in his country, that from the 9 members on the water user committee, 3 had to be women and that of these 3 at least 1 had to be a member of the water committee. Other country representatives spoke generally about women being involved at the “community” level.
The chair and another member in the group did echo my request for a gender analysis and asked presenters to address this as well. However, no one presented a gender sensitive approach to integrated water management. I asked if any of the countries were planning gender mainstreaming for policy in their countries – there was no reply. As there were about 9 countries presenting, and the chair was dominating the workshop, there was no room for further questions and discussion.
The next day, consisting of about 29 men and 6 women and which was supposed to focus on future actions proved to be an even more confusing and unfocused session. While the moderator did try to pull common threads, it was impossible to focus on any concrete strategies. There was disagreement in the group on almost all issues, it was impossible to focus inputs, and once again, the chair dominated the discussion. Out of 6 women, only two of us spoke during the workshop. I spoke about the need and importance of a different approach to the water sector – maybe taking some examples from other strategies such as multi-sectoral stakeholder processes, etc. that also operated from and included the perspectives of its different constituents. There was no support in the workshop for users to be involved in a transparent process that also engaged them in budgeting and fiscal matters.
Ultimately, attempts were made to further elaborate the outcomes of yesterday which included the need for a poor and gender impact analysis of policy and programmes. Suggestions were made that the water policies being developed in a number of countries address gender mainstreaming and focus on the poor. Everyone agreed that this was important – but no one really showed any commitment to this. We agreed to include this in the recommendations from our group. However, it was not in the final list in the plenary. In speaking with the Moderator it was added to the list presented to the Plenary, but she did not speak to it in her presentation to the plenary.
Overall, my sense of the working group is that most participants do not understand the meaning of gender or a gender analysis, let alone gender mainstreaming. There is a tendency to confuse gender to mean women. Additionally, in my working group, aside from the Moderator’s commitment to a gender sensitive approach to water sector programming, the other members were not interested let alone committed. However, the insistence of a gender conscious approach in the water sector in the rest of the Workshop as well as the working group did alert many people to the fact that something is amiss and that successful projects in IWM will require a different approach that specifically addresses the poor, gender relations, and division of labour. The experience of the Workshop clearly points to the importance of the work of the GWA and the need to expand the Alliance for the tasks that lie ahead.
