4. Gender Mainstreaming in Water Management

Retrieved from https://justicegroup.org/courses/mainstreaming-gender-into-project-cycle-management/

Gender Mainstreaming 

A solution to water related gender inequality in Africa

In the second blog post the relationship between water accessibility and gender inequality was discussed, and I argued that it is important to recognize and understand the prediction that the impact of climate change induced variations in weather patterns will have disproportionately greater negative impact on African women than men. Consequently, I have been looking for integrating solutions to this issue and in this blog post I am discussing the 'gender mainstreaming' approach. 

This approach has been deliberately discussed in a report by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) called 'Mainstreaming Gender in Transboundary Water Management in SADC' (2019). The report argues that economies will be more resilient, productive and inclusive if gender inequality will be tackled and reduced; this also means that equal participation in water management is an important asset of sustainable development. To start, it is important to grasp what is being understood by the notions of 'gender', 'gender equality'  and 'gender mainstreaming', therefore definitions derived from the SADC report are given below in Table 1. 

Table 1. Definitions of Gender, Gender equality and Gender Mainstreaming as identified in the SADC report (2019). 

So, gender mainstreaming requires the engagement of women and men, as well as girls and boys during decision-making, policy design and development processes, which is an integral way to achieve gender equality in the long run. It is also argued that women have positional knowledge of ecological and water related conditions due to differences in gender roles. So their knowledge has to be recognized in order to decrease their underrepresentation in civil engagement. To refer back to the third blog post, it requires a shift of narrative from women as victims towards women as agents in the field of water management and climate adaptation (Figueiredo & Perkins, 2012). Therefore, the remainder of the blog will focus on strategies to enhance gender mainstreaming and the civil participation of women in water management.

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