Considering Gender Issues in Flood Mitigation

Integrated Water Resources Management—Implications for Mozambique

By Maliha H. Hussein, Director (International Business) and Tariq Husain, Managing Director Enterprise & Development Consulting (Private) Limited

This paper presents a gender perspective on flood protection. The idea behind presenting a special paper is to highlight the particular issues that women face with respect to floods not only in Mozambique but the world over and present the gender perspective for effective flood protection and mitigation measures. Women are often disproportionately affected as a result of the economic and social dislocation of the household. They have to deal not only with the economic devastation and disruption of livelihood systems but are left to cope with the social and emotional upheaval that comes from dealing with the death, disease and food shortages that invariably occur in the aftermath of floods. The social and emotional affects of the damage that floods impose are often not even acknowledged as the main focus of rehabilitation is on the economic aspects of the damage. The recent floods in Mozambique gave a very clear illustration of the differential impact of floods on men and women. The poignant stories reported in the international press served to highlight this difference.

The idea that there is or should be a gender perspective on coping with floods is new but unsurprising. It is new in the sense that a gender perspective is not generally part of the way we work, the way we plan, implement and evaluate our responses to nature and man-made hindrances to the flow of water. It is unsurprising because the reality that is brought home with floods, the images from Mozambique included, is so obviously one that sets the women apart from the men. We know about a woman giving birth in a tree and a man looking for his lost family; a woman sowing the seed for the next crop and the man returning to work in South Africa; a child looking for his mother and a woman giving shelter to kids who come by her house.

In these and other examples from real life, the gender issue is seldom just a woman’s issue. It is, more often than not, a family affair, a community concern, a social issue, a financial and economic question and, in the final analysis, a matter of individual and collective choice. The choices may be presented here in a number of ways—in terms of competition among sectors and sexes, problems in trans-boundary co-operation, preferences for infrastructure over people, and so on, and all of these are legitimate ways of looking for integration in water resources management. There is a dire need to acknowledge the need for integration in these terms, but there is also, in addition, a need to ask what integration means in terms of making our lives and work more humane.

This paper contends that a sustainable solution to flood mitigation cannot be found unless local communities are involved in the process from the outset. While most governments and experts have now acknowledged that local communities have to be involved in the process they fall short of adopting a gender perspective which would make the approach far more effective. It is not enough to just involve communities but it is important to disaggregate the community and view them as distinct individuals with different roles and responsibilities. The gender perspective helps us to appreciate that because of the gender differentiation in roles and responsibilities the manner in which men and women have to be prepared for flood protection, mitigation and disaster relief is different. In the last floods in Mozambique, there were many men employed outside their village or country and were not even present at home when the floods came. In such cases developing a strategy for flood protection and mitigation that is aimed only at men would not make much sense. Training women to deal with disease control, mal-nutrition, food shortages, revival and treatment of the land and crop production would be far more appropriate. A gender perspective would advocate that the roles of men and women be examined separately and strategies of protection and mitigation be targeted specifically at men and women based on these roles.

The objective of this International Conference in Mozambique is to find sustainable solutions to flood mitigation. During the last floods, there was untold suffering caused by the death and disease caused by the floods. One-third of Mozambique's staple maize crop was destroyed and large numbers of cattle were killed. The communication infrastructure was severely affected. The economy was severely ravaged. Experts on different aspects of flood protection and mitigation will no doubt present strategies to control the extent of the human suffering and reduce the extent of the damage in the future. Despite attention on the subject in the last few decades, the record of flood protection the world over presents a dismal picture.

An examination of the flood protection strategies and plans of different countries reveal that most of these plans are made in a highly centralised manner with virtually no discussion and participation of the stakeholders. Most countries that make master plans for flood control, irrigation and drainage often focus on large-scale projects that entail heavy public sector investment. In Bangladesh the flood control Master Plan of 1964 envisaged the construction of embankments meant primarily to provide a flood-free environment for agricultural production. These structures were not meant to withstand catastrophic floods and save homesteads. Nevertheless, the people nurtured a false sense of security and de-emphasized other non-structural measures against floods. Beneficiaries were not apprised of objectives and limitations of the structures. This lack of communication with the local people kept them ignorant about the standard of the embankments and their ability to protect them against the floods. They unwittingly considered the embankments good enough for their safety against floods and neglected the traditional flood-proofing measures.

It has been suggested that any discussion on flood protection in Mozambique should touch upon the conflicts between sectoral interests within the country e.g. agriculture, energy (hydro), forestry, industry, environmental protection and identify requirements for cross-sectoral dialogue and establish institutional arrangements to mediate between these competing demands. Competing demands are not always reconciled easily especially in view of resource constraints. When priorities are established, women’s interests are often the most poorly represented as they are generally absent from decision-making forums. Thus women’s concerns are least likely to be addressed especially women who are most likely to be affected by the floods.

Strategies for disaster relief that are often followed do not take into cognisance the survival strategies of affected households. For example, the United Nations followed a strategy of withholding aid from flood-stricken towns and villages in Mozambique, in an attempt to pressure residents to move to refugee camps on higher ground. This policy had the affect of punishing residents of some towns such as Chokwe. People who had survived the earlier flood in trees and on roofs refused to abandon their homes. Thus thousands of people were left desperate for clean drinking water and food, and at risk from disease. There was little attempt to engage in a dialogue with the local people and negotiate a resolution.

The foregoing shows that the following aspects are common to most countries where floods occur;

• Information sharing about floods is not properly collected or shared and as such whenever floods occur they are presented as unexpected events that were not foreseen. The 1990s was the UN's decade for natural disaster reduction. Despite 10 years of worrying, climate-related disasters claimed more lives and damaged more homes and businesses and croplands at the end of the decade than at the beginning. There has not been enough investment in monitoring and analyzing hydrological data and sharing it with the people who need it most.
• Master Planning for flood protection is undertaken in a centralized and isolated manner by Central or Federal governments with emphasis on physical infrastructure works. The Master Plans are not discussed or shared with the people who they purport to protect.
• Resource allocation in the water sector is dictated by the vested interests of the powerful and the concerns and priorities of the most vulnerable households who are often the most seriously affected by floods are generally not considered.

• Disaster relief is undertaken in an ad hoc manner on the basis of preconceived notions of how people should respond and are often at odds with the coping strategies which local people have devised for themselves. There is often the perception that donor assistance is either untimely, inadequate or inappropriate after floods.

The key aspects of a good flood protection and mitigation strategy should cover, at a minimum the following elements. Each of these corresponds with the problems and issues identified above;

• An information collection and dissemination strategy;

• A participatory planning approach;

• A resource allocation strategy to reconcile competing demands;

• A strategy to co-ordinate donor assistance.

Further aspects that will have to be kept in mind while developing effective flood protection and mitigation strategies are how to develop mechanisms by which the voice of men and women in flood prone areas can be represented in the decision-making bodies that develop strategies for flood protection and mitigation and how the flood management approach that is to be developed in Mozambique should strike the right balance between the various interests and stakeholders and incorporate the views of the most vulnerable households.

It is up to the governments concerned, and those who support them financially and technically, to decide how to integrate people’s concerns into government plans. People seeking to improve their lives do not think in terms of sectors, nor do gender or national perspectives necessarily limit their quest for prosperity. If governments wish to engage their people, then the choices that people make need to be heard. An Integrated approach is one in which people’s choices are given primacy, not because people pursuing their interest are invariably right, resourceful or objective, but because it is in the interest of the State to give responsibility to the citizens, and of the citizens to take responsibility.

An institutional framework in which people are given primacy and responsibility is one aspect of what is required for gender integration. A second aspect, indicated at the beginning of the paper, requires integration in the entire process through which people are engaged in development and flood protection strategies. The understanding with which we introduce specific interventions reflects the third aspect of integration, and this is important because when interventions come before people, as in much of the work on water resources, technicalism rather than humanism drives the discourse and both the size and sustainability of benefits is undermined. The institutional framework, the flood protection and mitigation process and the integration of gender concerns.

The Institutional Framework

The institutional framework of each country is unique in terms of what it means for including women, the poor and other marginalised groups in development. In every country, however, there are sectoral programmes, particularly those of the line departments, which sponsor sector-specific local organisations whose membership is limited by function and not open to the community as a whole. Except in some of the micro-finance initiatives and small-scale women’s projects, rarely do the sectoral programmes aim specifically at involving women. The same is true for local government institutions: they work through elected or appointed representatives, invariably male, and seldom pay attention to the participation of women.

The situation in regard to traditional rural institutions for the collective management of village resources appears to be quite variable. These institutions may be open to all in the community but they are not generally considered suitable for organising development activities, especially for women, except, perhaps, on an ad hoc basis. In most countries, however, voluntary organisations sponsored by civil society organisations often have open membership and a focus on participation by women and the poor; they are also amenable to a holistic approach to community development.

Examples of autonomous organisations through which the State has encouraged people to take responsibility for their development are available from different parts of the world. Viewed in terms of the impact on people, especially the marginalised groups of people, the most successful of these cases are those in which the government decided to help organise rural people and protect their organisations from centralised bureaucracies and local elite. In other words, certain governments decided as a matter of policy to create autonomous support mechanisms for engaging rural people, rather than waiting for movements to emerge in civil society that would articulate the voice of the marginalised. These governments recognised that they needed to adopt a pro-active role on behalf of those who are excluded from the processes and benefits of national development.

The experience of some countries in Asia may inform our approach to the manner in which a participatory mechanism is evolved. Four East Asian countries—China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan—are often mentioned in regard to the role of rural organisations in the process of economic transformation. A team of researchers headed by Norman Uphoff (1982) concluded that “in all [four East Asian] cases we … see that systems of local organisation have been taken more seriously than in most developing countries. The structures created have been more top-down than bottom-up in all four cases, with South Korea most top-down and Japan most bottom-up, and with China and Taiwan ranking in between … That there has been strong and effective linkage between the central government and villages in all four cases is quite evident from the studies.” It is significant that the “strong and effective linkages” identified by Uphoff and others were established through institutions that were governed autonomously: central or local political institutions did not govern them directly (though in China, the governance structure of the communes included political representatives).

In South Asia, unlike most of post-war East Asia, the institutional landscape is populated with autonomous local organisations sponsored through non-government initiatives. These organisations are not substitutes for local authorities, but they have flourished, in part, because of the vacuum in local governance, and in part because some of them perform functions (e.g., advocacy, community organisation, women’s empowerment and poverty alleviation) that local authorities are not meant to perform. The internationally recognised Rural Support Programmes (RSPs), unique in South Asia and incorporating diverse experiences, are foremost among the non-government entities that harness grassroots resources for development. Functionally and structurally, the RSPs are support mechanisms for the rural poor, supported by the government, banks and donors, and inspired by East Asian successes reflected here since the 1960s. At the grassroots level, however, community organisations sponsored by the RSPs reflect the ideals of the co-operative movement of Europe, particularly the rural co-operative credit societies promoted by Raiffeisen in Germany in the 1860s and 1870s.

As evidenced from the examples given above, the most important factor in bringing about change is the recognition that organisational change is a top-down process: its animation and outcome depend intimately on the interest and commitment of the leadership. Research on local organisations confirms that commitment from the top levels of the government is the crucial difference between pro forma and meaningful initiatives for grassroots development. This is an important lesson from the East Asian and South Asian examples: regardless of whether the leadership was communist or capitalist, elected or military, it aimed for local organisations that were autonomous to a high degree, protected from centralised bureaucracies and local elite, and benefited the majority of the people.

The kind of institutional framework that is outlined above—a combination of autonomous local organisations and support mechanisms for fostering people’s participation—is also necessary for integrating women’s perspectives for flood protection and mitigation. It is necessary but not sufficient without commitment from the top and at all levels. Gender sensitivity requires that this commitment is translated into ways in which women and men can pursue what they have in common with each other and also what is distinct about their concerns. In the context of water resources management, this requires integrating gender sensitivity at all stages of planning, implementation and evaluation.

The Flood Protection and Mitigation Process

The process through which flood protection and mitigation plans progress from conception to completion should be akin to a generic project cycle (spanning stages such as identification, preparation, appraisal, implementation and evaluation). The lack of a gender orientation becomes apparent upon a review of the process generally followed in water resources management at almost all stages of this cycle. In the initial stages of planning, there is lack of identification of vulnerable women in a manner that would help estimate the number of people involved (e.g., women and their dependants) and their geographical location, sources of livelihood, socio-economic indicators, etc. There is also often an absence of key performance indicators focusing on the inclusion of women in water resources management and the design of implementation approaches that pay little attention to the identification of relevant groups of women and their participation in specific activities. Monitoring and evaluation reports, too, generally omit women from systematic consideration.

Identifying women and their dependants who have a high probability of being affected by floods is a pre-requisite for focusing attention and efforts on them. However, appropriate diligence throughout the project cycle can be exercised only if it is planned in relation to gender integration. Relevant key performance indicators, combined with appropriate changes in organizational policies and procedures, would seem to be essential ingredients of a gender sensitive planning process. These ingredients need to be built in from the very beginning into project concepts and appraisals.

Systematic assessment of the inclusion and exclusion of women during project implementation, accompanied by corrective action, is an integral part of the kind of due diligence that is required. Implementation monitoring focusing on gender concerns would also contribute to a greater focus on these concerns during evaluation of flood protection and mitigation measures. The idea should be for evaluations of plans and projects to correlate the impact of interventions with identifiable groups of vulnerable women and dependants, and identify the lessons learned about the design of interventions. The presence of women in the planning, implementation and evaluation teams should be ensured for undertaking or assisting with all stages of the process of flood protection and mitigation.

Understanding Interventions with Reference to Gender Concerns

The experience is that institutions that encourage women’s participation and processes of planning, implementation and evaluation that involve women in decision making go a long way towards helping identify interventions that actually address women’s priorities. Conversely, interventions identified without recourse to women’s participation are unlikely to help them much or encourage their sustained involvement. Without voluntary social organisation, peoples’ involvement may be commanded or manipulated; but the absence of organised consent nearly always entails the absence also of creativity, commitment, and continuity. Hence, experience in a broad range of cultures from Africa, Asia and South America shows that the extent and quality of community participation in planning and execution defines the crucial differences between an excellent, a mediocre, and a failed strategy.

Participation by women is important for identifying the impact of floods on men and women based on their specific roles and responsibilities. It is also important for developing mitigation strategies that will be targeted based on gender perspectives. Thus very specific actions are required for undertaking a gender perspective to flood mitigation. These entail (a) the identification of flood prone areas (b) the examination of the livelihood systems in the flood prone areas especially gender roles and responsibilities (c) an assessment of the extent and type of damage that floods are likely to cause (d) the identification of the differential impact of floods on men and women based on their specific roles and responsibilities and (e) the development of mitigation strategies that will be targeted based on the gender perspective. Such a gender specific approach will be an effective approach that goes a step beyond the current community participation approach.

The transforming of the institutional framework and the planning and implementation process for flood protection and mitigation has some far-reaching implications. It is not conceivable that any country will transform the manner in which it plans, implements and monitors for flood protection and mitigation without at the same time transforming the manner in which it undertakes the task of governance and development as a whole. A government that sees the rationale of undertaking the process outlined here and is committed to undertaking it will also want to transform the way in which it does its business as a whole. Thus the approach described here is an approach with far reaching implications for the manner in which governments undertake planning for development.

References

Ahmed, Eqbal. 1991. “Reflections on Farmer Organisation for the Management of Irrigated Agriculture in Sindh.” Consultant’s Report, Enterprise & Development Consulting (Pvt.) Limited, Islamabad, for Swiss Agency for Development Co-operation, February 1991.

Husain, Tariq. 2000. “Community, Governance and Development: An Analysis of Local Level Organizations in Pakistan.” Consultant’s Report, Enterprise & Development Consulting (Pvt.) Limited, Islamabad, for the World Bank, July 2000.

Uphoff, Norman. 1982. Rural Development and Local Organisation in Asia: East Asia.Macmillan, 1982.

A similar situation is apparent if plans and projects are assessed from the point of view of poverty alleviation (Husain 2000).