Message 40: Umarakhunova Gulbakhor

Umarakhunova Gulbakhor writes that initiative needs to be taken from both ends-in terms of training, capacity building to encourage participation and promote awareness, and also push for policies to address the entitlements and rights.

THE WHATS

To summarize I would like to point out the main problems, as access to water, land, financial and material resources and to education, by solving them we can initiate the process of Gender Mainstreaming in Water Management in Agriculture.

I propose the TWO ENDS problems solving programme. From one hand we can undertake the following actions as:

Conducting the training courses covering matters of water use and management for the groups consisting mainly of women. The main topics of these courses should include learning water-saving technique and methods of water management;
promoting the establishment of Water Users Group (WUG) where women participated in courses should initiate the establishing and be their major active members.
conducting the campaigns that promote the ideas of establishing rural WUGs, practical application of water-saving technologies, installation of water -metering devices etc..
organize the workshops in order to exchange the experience in the field of water use with initiation of water professionals and representatives of the regions, where WUGs were already established and successfully operated.
Provide the financial resources, by finding the credits with low rate or grants supported by governments or non -governmental organizations.
Rural women should be considered as a specific target group, but taking into considerations the diversity of social groups living in different regions and conditions, and also closer cooperate with activists of non-governmental organizations who work closely to gender problems.
Gender Study Centers, which will promote the public awareness with respect to gender problems, dissemination of knowledge regarding their gender aspects, implementing the gender research programs and pilot projects. And not less important issue, protection of discriminated groups, by providing the first aid as medical, juridical, technical, moral and so on.

From other hand, we should work from the top, by other words working with legislation and policy-makers.

With absence of policies that ensure rural women's right to water, as primary managers of household water supply in developing societies, women's lives are deeply affected. The increasing trend in much of the developing world to transfer ownership and operation of national water resource management and distribution from the state to foreign owned private sector places human development priorities and gender equality objectives at the mercy of market forces. By extension, privatization of water is a critical gender issue because processes of privatization impact the nature in which water supply and delivery is available to women and men.

Whatever its anticipated benefits, privatization has in a number of cases failed to deliver positive results up to now.

With the feminization of poverty especially with the absence of protection of women's right to own property and land, rural women lose their homes, land and other property due to discriminatory laws and customs, policy makers need to question what happens to the rural poor when certain macro economic policies are introduced. How does privatization of social services improve people's lives and address poverty? Can state-based entitlements be replaced by market based individualized entitlements? How are rural women benefiting from trade liberalization? How do interest rates affect small women farmers, how do inflation rates affect people's standards of living and consumption patterns, and what types of employment opportunities or unemployment do they generate? In this regard, I would call on policy makers and experts to understanding of the intrinsic correlation between poverty reduction strategies and other lending instruments that shape macro economic policies at national level. It is also crucial important for developing countries to ratify some international conventions correlated to gender issues, adopt the specific decrees and laws that will protect the women’s rights, assign some more functions to the governmental agencies like ministries of educations, agriculture and so on, in order to make them provide the support and assistance to the programs and activities conducted by non-governmental organizations on the bottom line. As to hear the clap of hands we definitely need two hands.

Umarakhunova Gulbakhor

IWMI Tashkent office