3.8 Gender, Water and Environment

Introduction

The different roles and responsibilities of women and men in water resources use and management are closely linked to environmental change and well-being. This is true both for how women and men affect the environment through their economic and household activities and how the resulting environmental changes affect people’s well-being. Understanding these gender differences is an essential part of developing policies aimed at both better environmental outcomes and improved health and well-being.

Gender Relations and Challenges in the Management of the Environment

Women play a critical role in the field of environment, especially in the management of plants and animals in forests, arid areas and wetlands (see box). Rural women in particular maintain an intimate interaction with natural resources, the collection and production of food products, fuel biomass, traditional medicine and raw materials. Poor women and children especially may collect grasshoppers, larvae, eggs and birds’ nests to sustain their families (Van Est, 1997). In Burkina Faso, for example, rural women depend on the fruits, leaves and roots of native plants to feed their families; supplementing agricultural grains such as millet and sorghum. Over 800 species of edible wild plants have been catalogued across the Sahel alone (Easton and Ronald, 2000, in UNEP, 2004).

As their knowledge is transmitted through generations, girls and women often acquire a thorough understanding of their environment, and more specifically of its biodiversity. Their experience gives them valuable skills required for the management of the environment. Women have an important role to play in preserving the environment and in managing natural resources to achieve ecologically sustainable production (UNEP, 2004).

Despite women’s assumed special relations to nature it should be stressed that all people depend on the environment and all should share the responsibility for sustainable use of water and other natural resources.

Challenges

Public participation in decision making

Public participation in environmental management is increasingly seen as a vital component of environmental policies. Several major international conferences in the 1990s, including the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992) and the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995), acknowledged women’s contributions to environmental management and proposed actions to strengthen women’s role in decision making. However, from the local to the international level, women have had limited involvement in the formulation, planning, and execution of environmental policy. When women do contribute to environmental management, it is usually at the local level. For example, women in Bangladesh, Mexico, the Russian Federation and the Ukraine have been involved in planning and management of freshwater resources through women’s groups and cooperatives. They mobilise communities and resources to conserve and protect supplies of clean, accessible water.

Environment vulnerability

The impacts of the degradation of the environment on people’s everyday lives are not the same for men and women. When the environment is degraded, women’s day-to-day activities, such as fuel and water collection, require more time, leaving less time for productive activities. When water becomes scarce, women and children in rural areas must walk longer distances to find water, and in urban areas are required to wait in line for long hours at communal water points.

Despite their efforts, women living in arid areas tend to be categorised among the poorest of the poor, and have absolutely no means to influence real change. They are often excluded from participating in land development and conservation projects, agricultural extension activities, and policies directly affecting their subsistence. Men make most decisions related to cattle and livestock, and even in households headed by women, men still intervene in the decision-making process through members of the extended family. However, because of the important contribution of women, the fight against the degradation of arid areas requires a gender-inclusive approach.

Access To and Control over Resources

In many countries, rights are linked to women’s marital status; widowed or divorced women often lose those rights. Even in countries where the law guarantees women and men equal access to land, women may not be aware of their rights, or customs may exclude women from de facto ownership. In, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Zimbabwe, for example, women have the legal right to own land and trees but, in practice, men control nearly all of the property.

Such insecure land tenure influences how different groups use natural resources. Women, the poor, and other marginalised groups are less likely to invest time and resources or adopt environmentally sustainable farming practices on land they do not own. In the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, researchers found that men usually plant permanent tree crops, such as coffee, on household land where they have secure tenure. Women’s food crops are relegated to rented, steeply sloped land with eroding soils. Because tenure is not secure, women have little incentive to invest in soil conservation measures.

These restrictions on women’s land rights hinders their ability to access other resources and information. Unable to use land as collateral to obtain loans, women have difficulty in adopting new technology and hiring labour when needed. In addition, women may not be able to access other support services, such as extension and training programmes. Agricultural extension agents have traditionally focused on the male farmers, even where men are working off the farm and women are the primary cultivators (Population Reference Bureau, 2002).

Watershed management

Women do sometimes participate in watershed management, for example, by maintaining forest cover to reduce soil erosion which often floods and silts reservoirs and waterways. However, training programmes on the technical and scientific aspects of watershed development are usually aimed at men. Training for women tends to be concentrated on practical issues such as tree planting. Ultimately, this means that women do not have the necessary skills, knowledge and confidence to participate in community decision-making and to assume leadership roles in management of watershed development (Pangare 1998, in Rathgeber, Eva, 2003). Gender analysis has not been a component of most watershed development projects.

Similarly, the impact of displacing local populations to accommodate large dam projects has rarely been analysed from a gender perspective (Baruah 1999, in Rathgeber, Eva, 2003). In some cases, planners actually have been aware of the costs of not incorporating gender concerns into relocation plans but they have rarely acted accordingly. In the Narmada Dam project in Gujarat, India, where populations were displaced from the area that was flooded, it became more difficult for women to collect the forest and biomass resources needed for subsistence. All available water was channeled into the dam and the adjoining land was inaccessible to local populations (Rathgeber, Eva, 2003).

Towards the Integration of Gender

Women’s status in conserving biodiversity may be enhanced through the following types of actions to integrate gender concerns into environmental planning:

• Improve data collection on women’s and men’s resource use, knowledge of, access to and control over resources. Collecting sex-disaggregated information is a first step toward developing gender-responsive policies and programmes.
• Train staff and management on the relevance of gender issues to water resources and environmental outcomes.
• Establish procedures for incorporating a gender perspective in planning, monitoring, and evaluating environmental projects.
• Ensure opportunities for women to participate in decisions about environmental policies and programmes at all levels, including as designers, planners, implementers, and evaluators. Women need official channels to voice their environmental concerns and contribute to policy decisions. Several countries have introduced affirmative actions to this end.
• Foster commitment at all levels—local, national, and international—to integrate gender concerns into policies and programmes which will lead to more equitable and sustainable development. At the international level, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) initiated “Women Action 21” at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio, 1992), as well as a more recent version, “Action 2015 - women for a healthy and peaceful planet” during the WSSD in Johannesburg.
• Incorporate a gender perspective into national environmental policies, through a gender policy declaration that demonstrates the government’s commitment; a reference document for technical staff working on national programs; and a framework for action to develop the capacity of both women and men to address gender concerns.