Post on 07-Jul-2020
transcript
Reforming Water, Adding Women?
Does decentralised water governance further gender justice in India?
Seema Kulkarni, SOPPECOM, India
Sara Ahmed, Utthan, India
Parallel Sessions II - Session B
Agenda
• Context
• Objectives
• Research Methodology
• Key Findings
• Policy Recommendations
• Areas for Future Research and Practice
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“We do not have money for food –
how are we going to pay for
water?” (women in a village in
Maharashtra which is likely to
have an SEZ)
“By 2010, women should have
access to safe water at their
doorstep,” (project director,
WASMO, Gujarat)
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Context: Water Sector Reforms in India
• 1990s: water scarcity, ‘valuing’ water, right to water
• Changing role of the state: from supply-driven to
demand-responsive, enabling environment
• Decentralised water management – local govt.
• Water users to pay some capital costs (10%)
• Full O&M – water tariffs (willingness/ability to pay)
• Participation of women integral – quotas (30-50%)
• Efficiency, effectiveness, equity and sustainability?
Maharashtra State Context
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Context (1): Maharashtra
• Second most populous state in the country with a high per capita
income
• First state to introduce decentralisation in political governance and
water sector
• Progressive social movements around water and women’s rights
• Drought prone state with 35,000 villages requiring some assistance
to meet domestic water needs
• Irrigation coverage of 16% of the total cropped area largely used for
water intensive crops like sugarcane
• Introduced Jalswarajya, Aple Pani and Jalsudhar programmes in
late 90’s early 2000 with institutional and economic reform
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Context (2): Gujarat
• Drought prone state, 75% of drinking water needs met from
groundwater – pipelines, leakage, water quality, uncertainty
• Strong state-civil society collaboration: alternatives
• 1997: first sector reform project launched (Ghogha)
• Challenge of re-engineering bureaucracy, participation
• 2002: WASMO formed to facilitate partnerships between
state, water users and NGOs (Implementation Support)
• 2003: Lessons from Ghogha, upscaled in ERR project
Bhavnagar
WASMO/GRWSSP/
Pravah Demo. Pilot/
Utthan
4 villages
Kutch
WASMO/ERR/DPP
KMVS
4 Villages
Dahod
Pravah Demo.
Pilot
1 Village
Surat
Tribal Sub Plan
AKRSP(I)
1 village
Ahmedabad
Pravah Demo.
Pilot
1 Village
Surendranagar
WASMO/ERR
Watershed
AKRSP(I)
2 Villages
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Objectives
To evolve a more nuanced and critical understanding of formal participation and informal practices of women from diverse social groups.
To look at participation as a process of negotiation, an end in itself (transformative) rather than the means to achieve project efficiency (instrumentalist).
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Research Questions
• What are the key institutional factors which facilitate /
constrain women’s participation in decentralized water
management?
• What role does civil society (NGOs, CBOs, networks,
academia) play in this process?
• Which women participate, why and how?
• Are women able to articulate priorities which address gender
just, socially inclusive and sustainable water management?
• Has participation led to women’s empowerment?
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Research Methodology
• Interrogating decentralisation: policy analysis and historical review
of water sector in both states
• Primary data on the performance of water institutions through
discussions with men and women in government water
bureaucracies – challenges in gender mainstreaming
• Selection of villages in consultation with NGO partners (Gujarat,
purposive sampling) and government lists (Maharashtra)
• Criteria for village selection:
– Diversity and size of population
– Stage in project cycle, issues and innovations
– Strong women’s participation (learning from best practice)
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Research Methodology
In each village:
• Transects to understand poverty, equity, access to water
• In-depth, structured interviews with women on water committees
(diverse socio-economic groups):
•Knowledge, awareness, perceptions of reforms, pricing
•Participation in meetings, articulation of voice, priorities,
understanding change, empowerment
• Focus group discussions with women and men on water committees:
accountability, transparency
• FGDs with non-members on their perceptions of water governance,
role of representatives
Key Findings
Equity, Efficiency and Sustainability
• Access to water improved but inequities across diverse
groups persist (private connections and location of the hamlets)
• Sustainability of the resource compromised due to tight time
frames (not an integrated water resource planning)
• Local groups lack the required technical and managerial
capacities to achieve the mandated efficiency (solar panels,
roof water harvesting)
• Problems in water delivery (timing and quantum) raise issues
of effectiveness
• Dominant discourse of valuing water well internalised- while
large number of poor unable to pay
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Key findings
Accountability and transparency
• Few mechanisms for downward accountability from the state to
the people or even to NGOs
• Few mechanisms for accountability within the community
representatives and the community
• Transparency at different levels exists (public display of
accounts and work)
• Blunting of collective identities that act as watchdogs- creation
of institutions that can be called as a captive civil society
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Key findings
Gender and participation
• Participation enhanced when larger framework of
decentralisation is operational and state is strong
• Women’s presence in the public sphere improved but class,
caste, martial status and age biases persist in public
participation
• Women’s presence poor in water for production
• Strong presence of civil society groups improves public
participation of women (NGOs, Self help groups)
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Key findings
• Women’s responsibilities on water institutions:
– Reinforce gender dichotomies around water/women
– Responsible for ensuring that area around water infrastructure
is kept clean (no waterlogging)
– Resolving conflicts over location of water infrastructure
– Collection of water tariffs – convincing women of need to pay,
ensuring financial sustainability of pani samiti?
• Extending women’s unpaid domestic work to community arena
based on assumptions of women’s honesty, commitment, time and
altruism
• Does not reflect in greater participation in decision-making by
women or articulation of voice, leadership
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Policy Recommendations
• Decentralisation is largely concerned with the public
arena of water management, but questions of
women’s participation embedded in larger gender
inequalities: private domain, organisational space
• Need for better linkages between water sectors –
moving beyond false dichotomy of water for
domestic purposes (women) and productive (men)
• Planning holistically for villages that fall in the same
watershed or river basin (moving beyond IWRM)
• Emphasis on decentralised planning and
management rather than cost recovery, fund-raising
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Policy Recommendations
Facilitating participation beyond institutional space
needs:
• Capacity building through different media: awareness
campaigns, folk media, street theatre, engage communities
• Technical training for women, socially excluded groups
(supplementary income) e.g. handpump mechanics, masons.
But also need to look at contracts for women, recognition
• Separate spaces and platforms for women to voice their
priorities – need to be linked to mixed forums too, otherwise
women’s priorities will remain ‘separate’
• Shared learning platforms that can facilitate dialogue between
different stakeholders – critical engagement with water policy
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Final comments
• Idea of decentralisation needs to be guarded against
‘community failures’ as well as free market advocacy which
goes on to cripple the state - neither is good for its progress
• Decentralisation of planning and management by the diverse
local people can be effective a) in the presence of a strong
state and not its retreat b) strong countervailing forces
that stand like watchdogs c) provision of strong financial
and social support to implement ideas that have
emerged from below d) local combines with the non
local (knowledge, ideas and resources)
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Final comments
Democratic institutions
can only create space,
but democratic practice
comes with a new politics
emerging both within
the family and outside.
Democracy, like
decentralisation is a
process, not a destination.
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Areas for Future Research
• Understanding different dimensions of women’s agency and
participation and role of men, others in negotiating participation
• Need for a better understanding of decentralisation investigating
some of the assumptions - fully informed and capable citizens,
mechanisms of accountability, in the Indian context and the role of
the state
• A comparison between centralised and decentralised systems- how
the cross subsidisation worked - do the poor end up subsidising the
local elite
• Research on water rights – minimum livelihood assurance, equity
and equality
Areas for Practice
• Informed advocacy with state and civil society
• Capacity building of different community members,
women and men, in areas of equality, governance
and management of resources and related aspects