Gender & Water Community

This blog People and Development run by people from the Development Studies Program at the ANU (Australian National University) focuses on development happenings around the world, with a particular focus on local communities and the people affected by development actors and actions.

Contributors are amongst other Patrick Kilby and Francesca Merlan. They also have some Gender Resources that are worthwhile checking out.

And on of the latest blog entries comments two recent UNIFEM reports: Gender Accountability is important…

Women lay hand on water pumps in India: Jamsol village, 60 km from the Steel City of Jamshedpur in Meniyar panchayat of Musabani block, has opened a new chapter in women’s liberation. With around 150 families, the village currently boasts of around 25 tribal damsels who are engaged in [the] hard work of repairing hand pump[s]. Read on on WASH news on Asia and Pacific…

Go Green, go vegetarian/vegan!! The ever lasting argument that meat production uses much more water… see here details and numbers for the US on the Vegifem Blog.  I wouldn’t be that radical but I certainly agree that meat production uses a lot more energy and resources so we should at least consider to go back to the traditional way of eating meat, on a Sunday only or have a meat free Friday!!!

Diarrhea a gendered health problem in Lebanon: Effect of Women’s Perceptions and Household Practices on Children’s Waterborne Illness in a Low Income Community. This study with an ecosystem approach examined the association between women’s household practices and diarrhea among children in a region where contaminated drinking water and intestinal diseases are common. The findings suggest that diarrhea is a gendered health problem. The study concludes that female children, who are generally more involved in household activities than male children, are at higher risk of suffering from diarrhea and that intervention activities would be more effective if based on a better understanding of gender roles and household power relations. See more here.

A related topic worthwhile mentioning: Women’s bodies remains battle ground for ideological struggles all over the world - This blog entry on Alternet discusses a few new books on this very issue…the reduction of a human being to its body alone. I would be interested in your views on this matter!

A new community driven effort brings water back to drought stricken Indian villages reducing women’s workload significantly in terms of fetching the blue oil:  The Watershed Organisation Trust was set up in 1994 to harvest rain water, by a German Jesuit, Hermann Bacher, and is now run by a Harvard-educated couple Crispino Lobo and Marcella D’Souza. Awarded the Kyoto World Water Grand Prize at the World Water Forum in Istanbul this year, the couple’s efforts to carry out rain water harvesting in an inclusive, equitable, sustainable and gender-sensitive manner have been saluted internationally. Read on.

Uganda’s urban poor get access to cheap and clean water thanks to an African Develoment Bank funded project. Until now urban poors have paid up to five times more to get water. Now with the introduction of pre-paid water meters the future looks again more promising… Read on on WASH Africa.

Dear Readers, here is a new and interesting blog from the international feminist community. Gender Across Borders is a site where issues of gender, race, sexuality, and class are discussed and critically examined. People of all backgrounds are welcome to come together to voice and progress positive gender relations worldwide.

Here is a current blog entry:
Thembi Ngubane - AIDS is not going to bring me down

There are currently six editors and various contributing editors, most of which reside in the U.S. They would like to expand their world view by getting different perspectives from people around the world and are inviting people to write for this blog. If you are interested you can get more info on their website under want-to-write.

Voices from the Waters 2009 - 4th International Water Film Festival, Bangalore

Friday 4th September, 2009 to Monday 7th September, 2009

Bangalore Film Society, Arghyam- safe, sustainable water for all, Svaraj-Society for Voluntary Action Revitalization and Justice, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, Ithaca College, USA (FLEFF) Mountainfilm in Telluride, USA, Alliance Francaise de Bangalore, Charter of Human Responsibilities and Water Journeys - Campaign for Fundamental Right to Water with the support of Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore are organizing this fourth edition of the biggest international film festival on water.

Established in 2005 to promote among the public an awareness of the myriad water-issues affecting our everyday lives either directly or indirectly and as a platform for alternate voices and views rarely heard in mainstream, Voices from the Waters started as a Bangalore-based Environmental Film Festival and over the 2007 and 2008 editions grew to be one of the largest, most diverse and dynamic platforms of debate, dialogue and celebration of the precious resource, the blue gold, life itself - water.

We invite you to be a part of the festival by contributing short, documentary, animation and feature films (DVD format only) with English subtitles on water and related issues.

If you have a film in under any of the following categories:

1. Water Scarcity,
2. The Dams and the Displaced,
3. Water Harvest,
4. Water Struggles/conflicts,
5. Floods and Droughts,
6. Global Warming and Climate Change,
7. Impact of Deforestation on Water Bodies,
8. Water, Sanitation and health,
9. River Pollution,
10. The Holistic Revival of Water Bodies,
11. Water and Life

Please find the entry form at www.voicesfromthewaters.com. Submission Deadline: 31st July 2009

For more details and guidelines check out the website.

Campaign for the fundamental right to water,
C/o No.33/1-9, Thyagaraj Layout,
Jai Bharath Nagar,
Maruthisevanagar P.O,
Bangalore-560 033.

“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water” - Loran Eisley

UNRISD is now accepting applications for a two to three-month internship position to begin in July 2009 (preferred starting date: 2 July) in the Gender and Development Programme (GAD).

Eligible candidates must be currently enrolled in a master’s or PhD degree programme (as per UN Secretariat rules regarding interns) in economics, sociology, political science or a related field from an accredited university and have academic and professional experience in issues related to gender and social development.

For more details visit their website, click on About UNRISD, then on the Institute and Vacancies or try here.

UNRISD
Palais des Nations
1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland

Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt together with Robert Wasson has published an edited book Water First (see an earlier Blog entry here) in mid-2008. Here is a review, written by Ashok Jaitly in the Journal Resources, Energy, Development.

Following an extract:

For South Asia, Water first is truly apt if we are to seriously consider a sustainable future for the region. Being a predominantly agriculture- and rural-based society, all else will become secondary, unless water issues are addressed conclusively. What makes the issue even more preeminent for the entire region is the commonality of the water source, along with the commonality of its usage and the commonality of its increasing scarcity.

In this volume, she and co-editor Robert Wasson have put together a set of articles that focus on several cross-cutting issues and challenges being faced by the nations and diverse communities of South Asia, with a particular emphasis on India. It has also been very appropriately emphasized that the dialogue on water issues needs to be much more inclusive among the so-called ‘water experts’ and ‘social concerns’ in order to promote a ‘holistic understanding of this vital natural element’.

And here the link to the article:  jaitly2009_reviewwaterfirst

Gender, Poverty and Environmental Indicators on African Countries, 2008 by the African Development Bank

This is the nineth volume of Gender, Poverty and Environmental Indicators on African Countries published by the Statistics Department of the African Development Bank Group. This year’s edition presents a special feature article on “Energy, Gender and Development”. The publication also provides some information on the broad development trends relating to gender, poverty and environmental issues in the 53 African countries.

Changing the Flow: Water movments in Latin America on GlobalJusticeEcology.Org, March 2009

In case after case around the world, water has been turned into a profit-making commodity – preventing access to the most essential element on Earth. Corporations and governments the world over – backed by their allies in the World Bank, IMF, and World Trade Organisation – are putting ‘for sale’ signs on urban and rural water systems. 

Despite this bleak reality, citizens are both eff ectively resisting threats and creating alternatives. Popular pressure is forcing some governments to step up, too. National constitutions in Uruguay, Ecuador, and Bolivia now enshrine water as a human right and bar it from being sold into private hands. Integral to the fight for water is another fight, equally fundamental, for a new model of citizen power and a new accountability from the state. In this booklet you will hear from some of the most visionary water warriors in Latin America. The authors hope you will be inspired by the visions, experiences, and lessons they have to share and that if not already, you too will become a water warrior to guarantee that water be protected as the fundament of life itself, for human beings and the whole planet…

Nature and Nurture: Poverty and Environment in Asia and the Pacific, April 2009, ADB

Overcoming environmental degradation is necessary if we are to reduce poverty. This is especially true in Asia and the Pacific, where two thirds of the world’s poor live. Environmental degradation in the region is pervasive and it is accelerating. This publication provides an overview of poverty-environment interactions and presents some of these case studies and others that show how poor communities in Asia and the Pacific have sought to break out of poverty through local actions that improved their environment or made them less vulnerable to environmental stress.

The NeWater Project announces 

Teaching Adaptive Water Management - A Training Course for Instructors

12-14 May 2009, UN Campus, Bonn, Germany, hosted by the UNU Institute for Environment and Human Security

The two-day training course is intended to familiarize university instructors with the teaching material provided in the Online Curriculum - Adaptive River Basin Management (http://www.newatereducation.nl).

The course will focus on both content of the modules, as well as the use of the materials in designing new programmes or incorporating these into the teaching curricula of the instructors who participate in the course. In addition, participants will learn about approaches to and methods for teaching Adaptive Water Management.

For more information contact Caroline van Bers <cvbers@usf.uos.de>

Through the CGIAR Gender & Diversity Program following vacancies are advertised:

IFPRI, the International Food and Policy Research Institute has a vacancy for a post-doctoral fellow for its Environment and Production Technology Division. Under the direct supervision of the Division Director and working with the Research Fellow leading the land resource and poverty reduction theme of IFPRI, and in close collaboration with other staff as appropriate, the successful Postdoctoral Fellow will conduct research on land resource management and poverty.  Check out on their website.

ICRAF, the World Agroforestry Centre is looking for a Climate Scientist, to be located in Nairobi, Kenya. For more details and to apply for this job check here.

Dev-Zone has the following vacancies advertised that might interest our dear readers:
South Asia Regional Livelihood and Food Security Advisor (LFSA ) - (Oxfam GB)
located in Kathmandu, Nepal, closing date 25 April 2009. Oxfam works in many countries to provide people with the support they need to overcome poverty and suffering. Here in South Asia, they run a busy programme of development, humanitarian and advocacy initiatives that address the real need for social protection and disaster risk reduction. For more information on this job, check out on their website.

Programme Co-ordinator (Oxfam GB)
located in Sana’a, Yemen, closing date: 16-Apr-2009. As one of the world’s developing countries, Oxfam’s ongoing relief and development programmes are integral to helping the people of Yemen establish a better way of life. With female literacy at just 30%, it’s essential to focus on gender equality and empowering women, all with a view to their contributing to the country’s future.
For more information on this job, check out on their website.

Executive Director (World Toilet Organization)
located in Singapore, closing date: 24 April 2009.
World Toilet Organization (WTO) is a global non-governmental organization committed to improving toilet and sanitation conditions worldwide. WTO seeks a dynamic and motivated Executive Director to lead their team during a period of rapid growth and transition. See here for more details on this job.

The latest IIED briefing is on the water crisis in Africa.

In rural Africa, ‘water poverty’ can destroy lives and livelihoods. Children under the age of five are especially susceptible to waterborne diseases. While a broken waterpipe in London may be a temporary inconvenience, a failed well in sub-Saharan Africa is potentially catastrophic. And this is a catastrophe that is spreading across the continent, where an estimated 50,000 water supply points have effectively died. The root cause is the water community’s failure to plan for maintenance of the infrastructure in a systematic way, creating a massive drag on meeting the Millennium Development Goal target on water and sanitation.
See here for a more detailed discussion. Or download the briefing.

In line with the recent comments to my blog post about Aquafed, I thought I pass on some of the latest comments made on the net on various blogs and other internet sites on the subject of water as a Human Right and water privatisation.

David Zetland from Aguanomics, an economist from the US has had a few articles on that subject: the latest in which you might be interested is: Human Rights and Water or see here a collection of “private vs public” blog posts.

Resources on Water, Human Rights, and Business

Privatising Water is denying people a Human Right (Business and Human Rights Resource Centre)

Water privatisation conflicts

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is seeking a senior water  specialist/hydrologist to support IFC in the design and supervision of  water footprinting pilots. The IFC is the private sector investment arm of the World Bank Group. In 2008, IFC became a founding  partner of the Water Footprint Network.

IFC now wishes to undertake Water Footprint pilots with selected IFC corporate agribusiness and mining clients in developing countries, initially focusing on India and Africa. The expert would be offered a part-time consultancy assignment with IFC, initially for up to 50 days, spread over 12 months. There is a strong likelihood of additional
consulting work becoming available through the Water Footprint Network.

Here is the job announcement. �

Women speak out the 5th World Water Forum in Istanbul. “Without water women cannot survive. Without women, water cannot be used properly,” says Begum Shamsun Nahar, founding member and Bangladesh Country Facilitator of Gender Water Alliance.

See for a detailed report on MaximsNews.

The Water and Environmental Sanitation Network (WESNet) Pakistan has formed a Global Water and Sanitation Group on Face Book. For making access to the group, please follow the below given link. It is an open group. Anyone can join and invite others to join. Here is the link to join.

Sanitation in Africa

NGO constructs toilets in Schools in Nigeria reports this blog: A Kano based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), Women Farmers Advancement Network (WOFAN), has constructed about 40 modern toilets in schools and primary health care facilities across the state to ensure good environment of the schools and the health centers…

African Entrepreneurs Pioneer New Ways to Improve Sanitation: Three African entrepreneurs are working together to improve waste disposal in their countries.South African entrepreneur Trevor Mulaudzi, originally a geologist, has become a ‘toilet activist’. Mulaudzi’s 300-member staff clean up filthy and unusable facilities and then educate their clients to about the importance of keeping them clean…

Human Right to Water

Fighting Development Banks for the Human Right to Water: The protesters in Colombia gathered to voice their concerns about the unsuccessful development model promoted by the Inter-American Development Bank, the promotion of privatization policies at the expense of local interests, and the bank’s populist rhetoric, which they say belies the exclusion of women, indigenous communities, people of African descent and other populations in bank programs…

Christian Ethics Blog Discussion on the Human Right to Water for all: As one of the foundational needs of life, this issue is an ethical dilemma of global proportions…As is often the case, it comes down to a matter of power, both political and economic, as the victims in the water crisis are generally poor, women, and racial and ethnic minorities…

WWF 5 critical voices

Critical voices on the WWF in Istanbul - “a corporate trade show to promote privatisation”: Activists from the People’s Water Forum, an alternative formation representing the rural poor, the environment and organized labor, slammed the official event as a non-inclusive, corporate-driven fraud pushing for water privatization and called for a more open, democratic and transparent forum.

World faces Water bankcruptcy : We are living in a water ‘bubble’ as unsustainable and fragile as that which precipitated the collapse in world financial markets…The scourge falls heaviest on women; in developing countries they can spend up to 60 percent of their day on treacherous paths to find water — and even then often see their children fall ill…

Climate Change scapegoat for the world’s water woes? This is asked and discussed by Roger Calow on the ODI Blog. He is summarising and commenting the recent WWF event. His main worry is how to segregate the impacts of climate change from those related to socio-economic and demographic trends. And he concludeds Climate Change is just one of many pressure on our water. Read it for yourself or make a comment here.

See also a recent event at ODI: Climate Change and Water.

Slum cooker protects environment, helps poor reads a recent headline on Reuters UK which sounds very interesting: Kenyan designers have built a cooker that uses the trash as fuel to feed the poor, provide hot water and destroy toxic waste, as well as curbing the destruction of woodlands. Read on.

Can China be green in 2020: Read about the challenges that China faces on BBC news. China’s unprecedented economic growth over the past 30 years has come at a huge cost to the environment. The damage has not only been to the air the Chinese breath or the water in their rivers, but also to its reputation across the world. But there are signs that China may now be serious about tackling pollution to prove to the world that it can develop while causing less damage to the environment…

Following vacancies are available. Please be aware that you have to contact the institutions directly for more information on the jobs as we are only helping to advertise.

The International Centre for Research on Women is an organization comprised of international development professionals – researchers, advocates and program managers committed to the creation and sharing of the needed tools, approaches and techniques that will serve as catalysts for change for women worldwide.  It has two vacancies:

Senior Gender and Agriculture Specialist and Economist. Application deadline is 30 June or until filled.

OSCE, the organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe is seeking a secondment for a Gender Officer in the field of Human Rights, positioned in Vienna. Deadline for application is 20 April. Here are the job details.

 Check out NRMjobs which advertises jobs and opportunities in the environment, water & natural resource management field in Australia and New Zealand.

See two interviews by David Max Brown on youtube from the WWF5. Sadly, one of the two interviewed died shortly afterwards in a car crash. Here is what these women have to say:
Fadia Daibes on the water situation in Palestine and being a woman working in the male dominated water sector:

and Meena Bilgi on development without a gender perspectives in India is a lost case:

The side session organized by SaciWATERs at the World Water Forum 5 called for generating visible demand for interdisciplinary studies on water in South Asia with a focus on creating a cadre of women water professionals to combat the ‘masculinity’ of current water sector.

The side event titled “Up-scaling IWRM Education in South Asia: Which boundaries to cross?” was organized by SaciWATERs for the Crossing Boundaries Project in Feshane Lale Hall 5 at the World Water Forum 5, Istanbul, Turkey.

The session evaluated the current status of water resources education, assess the demand for interdisciplinary water professionals and identify challenges, opportunities, and new initiatives in the realm of higher education for water resources in South Asia through the findings of the study titled “Strengthening IWRM Education in South Asia; Which Boundaries to Cross?”.

Prof. S Janakarajan, President, SaciWATERs, welcomed the panel members and the session speakers and briefly described the purpose of the Crossing Boundaries Project, an endeavour of SaciWATERs with six partner institutions in four South Asian countries, to bring a paradigm shift in water resources management education in South Asia. 

Dr. Peter Mollinga, Convener, SaciWATERs, initiated the session by briefing the participants on the objectives of the study which was to review the progress of the Project’s initiative and to determine whether higher education system in South Asia was responding to the reforms generated by the Project.

Dr. Vishal Narain, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Governance, Management Development Institute (MDI), Delhi, further elaborated on the findings of the Study in North India by tracing the changing perceptions of IWRM among water professionals and emphasized the fact that though there is a demand for IWRM water professionals in the Government sector, a visible demand still needs to be created.

Dr Nimal Gunawardena, Professor, Post Graduate Institute of Agriculture, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, and Steering Committee Member, Cap-Net, Sri Lanka, followed with a brief presentation on the status of the IWRM Education Programme in the Post Graduate Institute of Agriculture, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

Ms. Nazmun Naher Mita, South Asia Water (SAWA) Fellow, Masters in IWRM, Institute of Water and Flood Management (IWFM), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka, Bangladesh, shared her personal experience of being one of the first female students to take up the IWRM course in South Asia with the help of SAWA Fellowship provided by the Crossing Boundaries Project.

Following this, the three panelists, Dr. Shahbaz Khan, Chief, Sustainable Water Resources Development & Management Section, Division of Water Sciences, Natural Sciences Sector, UNESCO, Paris, France, Dr. Paul Taylor, Director, Cap-Net, Pretoria, South Africa, and Dr. Joke Muylwijk, Executive Director, Gender & Water Alliance, The Netherlands, provided their comments and insights on the study.

Dr. Khan shared his vision of IWRM programme gaining a stronghold in the higher education sector. However he also expressed his disappointment in the Draft Istanbul Ministerial Statement of the World Water Forum 5, 2009 which he regretfully pointed out, focused on the technical aspect of water management ignoring the socio-cultural constraints of implementing a change. He emphasized the urgent need to press the interdisciplinary approach to water resources management.

Dr. Paul Taylor, congratulated SaciWATERs and the partners of the Crossing Boundaries Project for the remarkable progress made in promoting IWRM Education in region and further emphasized the need for capacity building of higher level water professionals.

Dr. Joke Muylwijk lauded the report but also pointed out the lack of comprehensive gender-segregated data.

The participants of the session followed with various questions and comments on the issues of gender, capacity building of not only technocrats but also of social scientists and extending the programme to other countries of South Asia especially Pakistan.

Following are extracts from the newest headlines of India Water Portal:

Introducing Schools Water Portal
India Water Portal has launched its latest offering - Schools Water Portal, an unique platform for educators, students and and school management to share learning resources on water. The portal contains several colourful presentations , plays, debate topics, quizzes, poems and jingles all with water as the focal theme. All these materials follow the set syllabus, are for free download.

National Rural Water Supply Programme
Framework for Implementation (2008-12). New guidelines have been released by the Department of Drinking Water Supply, Ministry of Rural Development (GoI), towards ensuring drinking water security in rural areas.India Water Portal request your comments on this document.

New Book: “Water, Ecosystems and Society - A Confluence of Disciplines”. Written by Jayanta Bandyopadhay, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, this book is a guide to interdisciplinary knowledge on water.

For more news please visit their Blog.