Further memorandum submitted by Gram Vikas,
India
GENDER ASPECTS OF WATER AND SANITATION
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Every culture differs in its patterns of water
use, one clear difference lying in the gendered aspect of such
usage. In India generally and in rural India particularly, there
are glaring gender inequities in processes associated with water
and sanitation. Such inequities can be seen as a consequence of
a plethora of factors—extreme poverty and a consequent neglect
of even elementary hygiene, infrastructural lacunae, sex-role
socialization and the subsequent allocation of tasks, and the
relationship of women with their bodies, the latter being circumscribed
and mediated by traditional norms and attitudes. Given these gendered
dimensions, interventions in water and sanitation needs to take
on the mantle of a larger social agenda, which includes among
its priorities a progressive bridging of the gender divide.
This memorandum advocates a twin-strategy to
promote gender-equitable access to water supply and sanitation.
Firstly, it stresses on ensuring the strategic integration
and mainstreaming of gender at every stage, studying this mainstreaming
under three broad heads—gender-inclusive planning, gender-responsive
implementation, and gender-sensitive monitoring and evaluation.
Secondly, it advocates a holistic approach to gender
integration in water and sanitation that takes into account the
contextual linkages between this sector and the sectors of women's
health, education, and poverty and livelihoods, and moves from
practical to strategic gender interests in the direction of its
logic. Using case studies from the field, it then goes on to delineate
priority areas for government as well as donor agencies, arguing
for the channeling of direct resources, skill transfers and capacity-building
initiatives towards total development packages that position women
both as the beneficiaries of social change as well as the independent
drivers of that change.
ABOUT THE
ORGANISATION
Gram Vikas is a rural development organisation
working at the grassroots to enable poor and marginalized communities
in Orissa achieve a dignified quality of life, through social
interventionist measures that are sustainable, socially inclusive
and gender equitable. Started as a society in 1979, it has now
expanded to serve a population of 36,495 households in 559 villages
across 17 districts of Orissa.[180]
Simultaneously, it also partners with other NGO's in Orissa and
other states of India.
Gram Vikas' overall approach, built around the
concept of integrated habitat development, is termed MANTRA (Movement
and Action Network for Transformation of Rural Areas). A field
study conducted by Gram Vikas in 1991-92 found that over 94% of
households in rural Orissa in India do not have access to protected
water, and less than 1% have sanitation facilities. Water and
sanitation is therefore MANTRA's strategic entry point. Gram Vikas
believes that hygienic and protected toilets and bathrooms, and
uninterrupted piped water supply are necessary for a life of dignity,
safety and health for rural communities, especially their women.
This memorandum situates the question of gender
equitability in water and sanitation interventions within the
overall framework and findings of MANTRA.
GENDER IN
WATER AND
SANITATION: CONCEPTUAL
ISSUES AND
SECTORAL LINKAGES
1. In India, women are almost exclusively
responsible for ensuring the availability of water required for
domestic use. Non-availability of running water in housing units
therefore entails women having to walk for miles to fetch water
from the nearest water source. The water obtained thus may still
be contaminated, due to the absence of fixed-point defecation,
faulty systems of human waste disposal, and use of water sources
for bathing, washing of clothes and other tasks.
2. The absence of covered toilets and bathrooms
in housing units forces rural communities to use open spaces.
The higher levels of discomfort experienced by women while defecating
and bathing in the open impacts negatively on the thoroughness
of the cleaning process, first causing and thereafter exacerbating
skin diseases, gynecological disorders and general health. Water
and sanitation issues are also linked to issues of safety—the
absence of toilets close to home and the consequent need to walk
to far-away, unsafe spaces especially at night, exposes women
to the threat of attack and rape.
3. These linkages extend into the realm
of education too. Where women have to trudge for miles to collect
water, their young daughters are either expected to accompany
their mothers and help them carry additional water, or stay at
home to look after younger siblings while their mothers are away
from home. This keeps young girls away from school. Also, the
high rate of morbidity accompanying the use of infected water
cuts into family income, further blocking funds for other uses
such as the education of daughters, which in any case is not a
priority for poor, uneducated families.
4. Finally, the physical drudgery and loss
of man-hours involved in collecting and managing water takes its
toll on time availability as well as overall productivity, negatively
impacting upon women's efficiency and motivation. This hampers
women's income-generating capacity, perpetuating poverty. This
role played by investments in healthcare in overall poverty reduction
strategies is now increasingly been recognised.[181]
GENDER MAINSTREAMING
IN WATER
AND SANITATION:
THE MANTRA MODEL
5. Gram Vikas' MANTRA framework takes into
account these complex inter-sectoral linkages between water and
sanitation on one hand, and women's poverty, health and education
on the other, to formulate an integrated development package that
also seeks to mainstream gender as an independent variable. Gender
mainstreaming in water and sanitation can be seen to consist of
gender-inclusive planning, gender-responsive implementation, and
gender-sensitive monitoring and evaluation.
6. Keeping the cultural context in mind,
MANTRA provides for separate consultative bodies for men and women
in the initial stages of planning; this allows women to develop
the confidence to articulate their needs in an enabling environment.
Later, these separate groups are merged and a joint Village Executive
Committee elected, in order to formulate a unified plan of action;
this Committee has 50% reservation for women.[182]
This, then, is gender-inclusive planning—a process
whereby planning is situated within its geo-physical and socio-cultural
context, in order to formulate a more effective process of involving
men and women equally in the planning process.
7. The next stage consists of gender-responsive
implementation. MANTRA involves women in the building of infrastructure
necessary for water and sanitation works. Unskilled men and women
are trained in masonry by Gram Vikas; on the completion of their
training, they work under the supervision of an engineer as well
as master masons to construct the toilets, bathing rooms and overhead
water tanks envisaged earlier. These men and women are assured
of masonry work for one year if they so desire, after which they
can use their newly-created skill base to search for employment
elsewhere. The water and sanitation programme thus widens into
a sustainable livelihoods programme, a very useful linkage if
seen in the context of the self-perpetuating cycle of poverty,
absence of skills and unemployment.[183]
8. The final stage of gender mainstreaming
is that of gender-sensitive monitoring and evaluation.
This implies a measurement of women's continuing participation
in the sustainable management of the water and sanitation systems,
and gathering systematic information regarding whether the facilities
thus created are favourably impacting women as planned.
GENDER EQUITABILITY
IN WATER
AND SANITATION:
RECOMMENDATIONS
International Level
9. Gender equality as a goal has already
been given due importance in the Millenium Development Goals.
Gender as a priority area now needs to be backed by a clear, coordinated
policy, so that it can emerge as a core area of funding within
water and sanitation initiatives.
10. At the same time, it needs to be realized
that though remaining constant in their broad logic across different
geographical and socio-cultural sites of endeavour, the dynamics
of gender are completely contextual and differ according to the
specifics of location, their particular cultural norms and attitudes.[184]
Therefore, resources need to be directed towards researching and
understanding the lived realities of women. These findings, rather
than any overarching model, need to form the basis of intervention.
It follows that the most successful interventions will typically
be local-led initiatives, facilitated by CBO's, NGO's, the government,
as well as international expertise.
11. Identification of factors responsible
for hindering equitable access to, and equal participation in,
community-led water and sanitation initiatives should pave the
way for adequate resources, both financial and professional, being
directed towards priority areas such as training workshops for
building social confidence among women, capacity building and
skills transfer to participating women, and specialist advice
on gender mainstreaming throughout. Donor bodies such as DFID,
with specialist skills and with proven mandate to influence donor
priorities in the field have a proactive and dynamic role to play
in this context.
National Level
12. Government needs to identify gender
as a priority area within its water and sanitation programmes.
This identification should then be reflected in increased government
spending on gender mainstreaming.
13. Upgradation of specialist skills in
gender mainstreaming is therefore another important area, which
presupposes a realization on the part of the government, of the
extent to which gender inequities can ultimately hamper the success
of water and sanitation initiatives.
14. Setting up SHG's and conducting leadership
workshops, capacity-building and training such as in the basics
of community-management and financial accounting, with the help
of local organisations is another effective method to ensure the
continued participation of women in the sustainable management
of water and sanitation systems, even after direct interventions
have been phased out.
15. The government should stress on the
adoption of an empowerment approach rather than an approach premised
on misplaced notions of welfare, as reflected in most attitudes
of political patronage or philanthropic largesse. This logic then
needs to be extended to women; instead of being clubbed together
as a "helpless" group, they are expected to participate
in all aspects of the planning process as thinking individuals.[185]
Community, Civil Society and NGO level
16. The most important task at this level
is the aggregation of disaggregated but clearly identified needs
of local women, into a coherent demand-led strategy of growth.
NGOs with a local base and knowledge of local conditions have
a particularly important role to play in this regard.[186]
The approach should be holistic, taking into account sectoral
linkages.
17. Innovative cross-sectoral interventions,
such as the use of the education system to disseminate information
on the benefits of protected water, sanitation and hygiene can
be an effective mechanism to strengthen direct interventions in
health
18. Institutional mechanisms with developed
feedback loops need to be designed and implemented on the field,
so that future issues can be articulated smoothly. Women need
to be seen as central to this process of programme design, implementation
and monitoring.
ABREVIATIONS
| CBO | Community Based Organisation
|
| MANTRA | Movement and Action Network for Transformation of Rural Areas
|
| NGO | Non Governmental Organisation
|
| SHG | Self Help Group |
| October 2006 |
180
Annual Report 2005-06, Gram Vikas, Mohuda, p 6. Back
181
Mohga Kamal Smith, "Enhancing Gender-Equity in Health Programmes:
Monitoring and Evaluation", in Sweetman, Caroline ed. Gender,
Development and Health, Oxfam, Oxford, 2001, p 95. Back
182
Gram Vikas, p 7. Back
183
The gender aspect of this linkage is very pertinent when seen
in the light of a movement from practical to strategic gender
interests. As young women are trained in masonry, they acquire
the same skills base as their men, enabling them to become earning
members of their families. Further, masonry being a traditionally
male-dominated activity, women's foray into this area poses an
effective challenge to traditional male-female stereotypes. Like
men, women need to venture out of the seclusion of their homes
to find work opportunities, increasing their mobility and social
and financial independence. Back
184
For instance, in a rural, developing country context characterized
by the absence of even basic amenities, women's initial needs
may be different from those of their counterparts in either developed
countries, or in the urban pockets of their own countries. These
differences need to be factored into the overall interventionist
framework. Back
185
Under the MANTRA programme, a poor widow also contributes equally
to the process, though the exact form of this contribution differs,
and is a function of what she can afford-her share of money to
the corpus, materials, or her time and labour. Back
186
Gram Vikas has witnessed several incidents of primary resistance
against social intervention coming from village women; however,
when these local women are convinced, there have been equal instances
of their taking the initiative in articulating their water and
sanitation needs, sometimes even in opposition to the men of the
community. See Rural Health and Environment Programme: An Alternative
Paradigm for Sustainable Transformation of Rural Areas, Gram Vikas,
Mohuda, 2001, and "A Silent Revolution: Where Women Take
The Lead", in People, Communities and Development in Rural
Orissa: A Compendium of Case Studies from Gram Vikas, Gram Vikas,
Mohuda, 2004. Back
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