Message 51: Barbara van Koppen

Hi Chris,

Interesting discussions.

I think I would simply say: how is it then that there is still hardly any water available in poor areas for women to wash the nappies? And, in matrilineal societies where women do inherit land, and where there are female farming systems, your food and fibre is only going to come if irrigation engineers (who tend to be male due to the education system) do target women, irrespective of stereotypes on the farm household that male professionals may (but not always) hold differently than women- e.g. the wetland improvement project in Burkina Faso.

Anyhow, in practice, women just take water for washing nappies even if the engineer designs the scheme for food and fibre only (and in practice women and men will use 'domestic' supplies for gardening), so better design from the outset for both productive and domestic water needs allowing both genders to contribute to and benefit from domestic and productive life.

I hope the new IWMI gender group comes up with interesting scientific question on what we do NOT know as yet, and especially, how things can CHANGE (as they already have changed in the past two decades). I attach a paper on those changes, written for Intizar's poverty study.

Cheers

Barbara