2.2 Introducing Gender

Gender mainstreaming is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies and programmes in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women's as well as men's concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres, so that women and men can benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality [by transforming the mainstream] (ECOSOC, 1997, emphasis added).

In the area of water resources management, an uncoordinated and sectoral approach has resulted in environmental degradation from overexploitation of water resources, inappropriate allocations among competing uses, inequitable distribution of benefits and burdens, and inadequate operation and maintenance of infrastructure. Inadequate involvement of both women and men has hindered programmes and projects aimed at addressing sustainability in water resources management. Community participation and management approaches have failed to address these issues, largely because communities are often seen as a collection of people with a common purpose.

The reality is that a communityis not a collection of equal people living in a particular geographic region. It is usually made up of individuals and groups who command different levels of power, wealth, influence and ability to express their needs, concerns and rights. Communities contain competing interest groups. Where resources are scarce, there is competition for supplies, and those at the lowest end of the power spectrum - poor women and men - will go without. Unequal power relations place women in a disadvantaged position. Applying a gender analysis helps water sector agencies allocate their resources better to meet the needs of different women and men and marginalised groups.

People-centred approaches do not always ensure that gender perspectives are taken into account. Thus, a deliberate strategy of gender mainstreaming can be useful to ensure that these issues that effect women and men are part of analysis, programme and project planning, implementation, and evaluation. More importantly, gender mainstreaming can assist in bringing about institutional and organisational change necessary to ensure gender equality as an on-going commitment.