Summary of discussion on the "whys"

The issues that emerged through the discussion on ‘why gender mainstreaming is important’ and ‘what the issues involved are’? Many of the issues related to gender are interlinked with others, and cannot be understood without the other; this is something that has been emphasized in all of your messages.

General statements:

• Water management and all other activities related to it have an impact on social interactions and structures, therefore any change in water management and or a production system will also affect the relations that exist between men and women of different age groups and classes. Thus, practitioners, extension workers, scientists and policy makers will always directly or indirectly affect these social relations when trying to direct or change certain management and/or production dynamics. By being aware of this, actions and interventions can be designed to strengthen, break, change or adapt existing gender patterns and dynamics within the specific social, cultural, economic, technical and productive contexts. (message 13)
• Another general comment is that this discussion on “gender issues” could be broadened to include other forms of social differentiation such as poverty, class, caste, religion, ethnicity. All of these aspects are equally important when working with communities and they are linked with each other.
• Mainstreaming gender and other social issues are part of implementing an integrated approach in agricultural water management that should be applied in project design, implementation as well as policy development.
• Our inability to address gender is not new. Two participants linked it up to our willingness to have integrated responses; these raise additional questions that you may want to think about in your messages. What are the barriers that can be removed? What stops us from accepting or implementing integrated responses? We have been calling for integrated responses for several decades; it is not new, but why are we repeating the call? Are there real obstacles? Are these documented? Have these been assessed? (message 11 and 21)
• The gender mainstreaming goal of transforming organisational cultures and politics, towards equity and social justice has remained largely unadressed. What is needed is the transformative agenda which calls for a redistribution of power, resources and opportunities in favour of the marginalised. Do we plan, design and promote tools that will help meet mainstream development goals or do we work towards the development of strategies that are focused on equity? (message 26)

The Issues

Rights and Access to resources is often gender blind

• Gender hierarchies in access to resources, and formal rights are often not equitably distributed. (e.g example from Peru-message 3, and from central asia-message 12)
• Increasing women’s access and rights over resources (natural resources, as well as credit, training, education) is as an important avenue for gender equity.
• “In 1986, the right to Development was made explicit in the UN Declaration on the Right to Development. Article 1 states that every human person are entitled to participate in, contribute to and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.” (message 6) This implies that men and women have equal rights to development.

Social exclusion and exclusion from institutions

• Water can play an important role in decreasing poverty, so we have to understand how the benefits can be equally distributed. This implies to understand who the stakeholders are, particularly the powerless and voiceless groups, the power structure and informal and formal systems in place.
• Gender interacts with other variables such as class, race, and age, etc. therefore one need to look beyond gender and understand interlinking systems of exclusion and particularly how marginalisation is produced and reproduced.
• Mainstreaming would imply questioning and challenging how resources and powers are distributed. and that ALWAYS meets with resistance of those who have or associate with the powers that be.

Division of labour in agriculture and water management is gender differentiated but not addressed as such.

• The relative roles that women and men play will vary from one agriculture production system to another and from one culture to another. Men are often in charge of the productive functions and large businesses. Women's sphere in agriculture is the non-monetary, non-commercial, unpaid thus need not be part of accounting or accountability, are a 'natural aspect of membership in a household (often included in the category known as domestic/ reproductive chores). Being non-monetary, non-accountable for, women's roles in agriculture are invisible. (message 17, 30)
• Since livestock-based assets serve as key means for people to secure and accumulate wealth in Africa, understanding the relative roles women and men have in livestock keeping and in access to wealth stored as livestock will be important to understanding one major pathway out of poverty. Analysing livestock as part of multiple water use systems, help find ways to improve school attendance in rural areas of both girls and boys. (message 20)
• What are the changes gender mainstreaming entails? Does it entail assisting men and women to perform their already existing roles better or does it entail making fundamental changes in these roles (social engineering). One of the problems with giving productive roles (“male roles”) to women is that they add on to their traditional domestic roles and sometimes this results in an overburdening and may result in men giving up their traditional supporting role to the family.
• Women’s labour in agriculture but often not economically valued. This may make some tasks invisible particularly in irrigation systems (e.g. survey done in Central Asia, message 12, message 29).

Policies and Decision-making too often gender neutral

• Gender (caste class) systems are institutionalized through education, political and economic systems, culture, and traditions. Whilst these systems are dynamic and changing, there are vested interests to uphold and reproduce gendered practices which can be to the detriment of women, and their active participation in the productive space. Changes are slow but have to be institutionalized and empowerment is a key element to achieve this.
• Women are not only victims and passive actors, they also take actively part in decision making if empowered and recognized as a “stakeholder with equal rights and voice”. This may take different forms depending upon the cultural context.
• Decision making spheres, areas of power are often male dominated.
• Policies are often gender neutral and do not provide the environment necessary for gender inequalities to be addressed, and do not allow changes to happen at the household level. Differentiated policies and programs that discriminate positively between men and women provide the adequate environment: access to credits, land ownership, special capacity building, legal assistance, children care centers, etc.).
• Some countries are designing gendered policies as shown by South Africa policy on providing financial support to small scale farmers that includes clause that incentivises that, where there are women farmers, they are represented on the decision-making structures in the water user association. (message 27)

Participation

• Users and water managers are men and women. Hence, policy and practices must acknowledge these users; involve them appropriately in planning and development, and in particular in water user associations.
• To take into account the different water-related needs and priorities of men and women, to ensure an equitable distribution of water and its benefits.
• Effective participation of all, particularly women is difficult to achieve because of various constraints: e.g. women not listed among the users, meetings/seminars organized far from villages, poor access to information, society taboos and cultural norms (example from Cambodia, message 14; from Central Asia message 22 )
• Mixed male and female groups for resource management can be more effective, but they may involve greater transaction costs to set up mixed groups, particularly where there is strong gender inequality or segmentation. (message 31). Do we have cases that either support or contradict this hypotheses?

Why is gender not mainstreamed?

Gender issues in agricultural water management are context specific and take time to address

• In female farming systems where half or more of farm decision-makers are women, mainstreaming gender is a matter of achieving agricultural growth. There, participation in water use association, access to land rights, and innovations for women farmers in these countries is a must.(e.g. south Africa message 18)
• It is difficult to create simple guidelines that capture the diversity of the issues that maybe culture or region specific: for example, the quantities and timing of water available for field irrigation (e.g. night irrigation is more difficult for women) as well as for household gardens; impact of water quality on health (e.g. impact of agrochemicals through exposure to the water, including from bathing in canals).
• There is a lack of gender analysis and experiences to provide adequate guidance in some areas of water management (example: ecosystem management, message 21)
• Shortage of time. Existing gender situations have existed for generations and we try to change social structures within a project timeframe (3-5 years usually), and another 10 years to correct the anomalies leading to almost nothing. Changing the cultural perceptions and getting empowerment are slow processes.

Segregated and technical approach to water management

• Social patterns of interaction are by nature gender sensitive, not only in agriculture but at all levels of society, including the people and institutions working with water management and agriculture. As such gender dynamics are often taken for granted or ignored.
• Gender and worst - gender mainstreaming - remain an afterthought and not flagged as a 'funder's requirement'. Simple social sciences approaches such as stakeholders analysis (looking particularly at roles/ responsibility in water use and productive activities) are often not used prior to designing projects and systems (e.g. example from Kenya, message 25, message 30)
• Conceptualizing water and water management is often done from a 'resource' perspective - hence: the conservation of water or the efficient management of water is central and the final objective. ‘The social' tends to only matter in function of this - and social power relations, including gender, tend to be either taken for granted or assumed away. Gender analysis often not put in at the onset of the design and coming in too late in the process to be useful .
• Dominant actors in water policies elaboration prioritize economics. Often, again developed from a technical stand-point (lawyers, engineers, agronomists, economists, etc.) without inputs from social or gender perspectives. A change in the legal framework of water management is needed to create participative river basin structures with participation of the different social sectors where women organizations could also take part. A change in the way water management is taught is also essential to allow for gender sensitive approaches. (message 29)
• Tendency to dump any thing gender [read women / female] on the specialists table – the “doesn’t-concern-me” attitude.

Different interpretation to gender mainstreaming

• Different stakeholders-practitioners, gender activist, researchers- often lack a clear understanding of the reasons why they want and ought to integrate gender into a project. (e.g. irrigation management transfer examples in India, message 17)
• using a gender approach is sometimes “women dominated’ when it should entail also involving men in finding solutions to the empowerment of women. (e.g Kenyan experience, message

Marginalisation of social issues in technical training and lack of funding and willingness to allow changes

• Sectoral approaches to water management, with limited “social sciences content”
• Often “masculine culture” dominates particularly in the irrigation sector,
• Tools such as guidelines and manuals on gender mainstreaming often not considered because not sufficiently tailored to a technical audience and not available in local languages.
• Fundings and time limited for training, workshops that pave the ways of dialogue processes for better understanding across social groups, and allow effective empowerment.
• If we've gotten past the issue of looking at agriculture as a partnership or relationship between people and crops/livestock/forest products/fisheries/ resources and now beautifully advocate participatory involvement of all stakeholders throughout the project cycle, why should it be so difficult to go the extra step of advocating engendered participation? (message 30)

The task remains to undertake these issues practically. Gender mainstreaming toolkits and guidelines are readily available however, is the task as easy as checking boxes on a form? What then is the role of practitioners and researchers in relation to the communities, of both men and women, they engage in water management for agriculture.