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GENDER AND WATER PROGRAMME BANGLADESH GWAPB and BDP 2100

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GWAPB

1. GWAPB facilitates gender integration in the EKN supported water sector programmes, civil

society, water professionals and government organisations in Bangladesh

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GWAPB contribution to BDP 2100

Mostly to thematic area specific baseline studies

1. Ateliers (WATSAN)

2. Scenario development

3. Assessment framework

4. The 7th Five Year Plan of Bangladesh

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Thematic areas

(i) (i) Water resources; (ii) River system management; (iii) Coast and polder issues; (iv) Public health, WATSAN; (v) Disaster Management;

(ii) (vi) Climate Change; (vii) Land resource management;

(iii) (viii) Urbanization and settlement; (ix) Agriculture and Food security;

(iv) (x) Fisheries and livestock; (xi) Ecological settings; (xii) Forest and bio-diversity

(v) (xiii) Environmental pollution; (xiv) Growth of population and management; (xv) Socio-economic and demographic condition;

(vi) (xvi) Sustainable transportation and infrastructure; (xvii) Institutional Framework/arrangements;

(vii) (xviii) Regional Cooperation; and (xix) Infromation and knowledge management

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Land resource management

Ownership and entitlement of assets like land – economic as well as social status and dignity.

CEDAW Article 2 – reservation prevails. Landownership could facilitate easier access to institutional facilities.

FAO statistics 1993: Women owned 3% of country’s agricultural land; ALRD 2013 – 48% of women are deprived of access to land though they are engaged in agricultural activities.

Opportunities: NWDP 2011 focuses on giving women the rights to wealth and resources earned through income, succession, loan, credit, and land and market management.

Suggestions/recommendations: Elimination of discriminatory laws – Land Management and Distribution Policy, 1997.

Women friendly process of mutation, partition, survey, payment of land development tax – needed.

Increased efficiency of women in climate resilient land management – afforestation, agril. Tech., etc.

Gender related provisions and guidelines provided in different policy documents……….(read)

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7th Five Year Plan of Bangladesh- Focus on Water resources, agriculture and food security

Water safety and food security the main focus.

- Vision: A society where women and men of all strata will receive equal opportunities as beneficiary partners as well as change agents in development.

- Mission: To ensure women’s effective participation in all the sectors of the economy towards their social, economic, political and physical empowerment.

- A framework has been suggested keeping the four elements of empowerment and enabling environment, capacity building, effective engagement, resilience, empowerment, access to resources, governance in focus.

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WATSAN

1. Importance: Conveniently located, routinely maintained WATSAN benefit the whole family. Technology, design matter – hygiene, health, school attendance, menstrual management, privacy, safety, etc. Facilitates economic, social and physical empowerment.

2. Opportunities: National Water Policy 1999 puts emphasis on special needs of women.

1. Recommendation: Facilitate inclusive sector development strategies

2. Women’s effective participation in WATSAN planning

3. Piped water all over the country. Etc.

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Public Health

1. Commendable achievements. MMR, IMR, TFR, life expectancy - Complacent?

2. Challenges: SBA, high rate of discontinuation of use of family planning devices, ineffective urban primary health care, gender sensitive service delivery, medical

auditing, low utilization of public health facilities by the poor, insensitive infrastructure, climate related health impact on women and adolescent girls.

3. Recommendations: 4. Resilient infrastructure

5. Women friendly services

6. BCC – Nutrition - economic empowerment opportunities for rural families – holistic approach.

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Climate Change

1. Though there has been a significant decrease in disaster-related deaths in Bangladesh, different studies reveal the fact that women, boys and girls are 14 times more likely than men to die during a disaster. In 1991, during the cyclone disaster in Bangladesh, of the 140,000 people who died, 90% were women (Source: EM-DAT and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Disaster Profile: http://www.emdat.be/database.

Women are more vulnerable to flood, cyclone, drought as they are the managers of water at the household levels. Productive activities get hampered.

Recommendations:

Early warning

Women and men’s effective participation in CC related disaster management – preparedness and recovery.

Cyclone shelter – safety, security, privacy – adolescent girls, pregnant, elderly, disabled

Capacity building on alternative (?) livelihood options

Research – health, drought, etc.

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Agriculture and food security

1. Women spend many hours in agricultural work, whilst this is called ‘helping the husband’.

2. Issues: Recognition, capacity building, access to institutional credit, equal rehabilitation of women and men farmers after disasters, right to own government land, equitable access to

irrigation, access to markets, control over income, generation of investible capital, skills development on climate resilient cropping technologies, food storage and preservation

technology, participation in water users groups, producers’ groups, FMG, participation in supply chain management, horizontal learning, etc.

3. The women empowerment section of the Agriculture Policy 2013 should specifically reflect women and men’s economic, political, physical and social empowerment and the link

between them related to agriculture.

4. SDG 2 and 5

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River System Management

Rivers take land and give it back in a different location. Such river bank erosion affect lives of women differently

Loss of homesteads, often the only source of income.

Loss of housing leads to physical insecurity – girls stop going to school, help mothers.

Food insecurity by losing productive resources – livestock, homestead garden, etc.

Physical insecurity – damaged WATSAN – women then collect water from very far; VAW.

Male members migrate – women become more vulnerable – remittance not regular.

Trafficking, sexual harassment. Pregnant, lactating, elderly, differently abled suffer most.

Women often do not get space in resettlement villages as their little homestead does not have title deed, holding number. De jure they are not the owner of the land their house was standing on. Skills training should be need based, resilient, market based. Should receive priority in receiving khas land and ponds but those are highly controlled by influential – poor women heads of household have the smallest chance. SDG: 2, 8, 9 and 14

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Institutional arrangements

Ratified CEDAW in 1984; endorsed BEIJING PFA in 1995; committed to achieve MDGs and recently adopted SDGs by the UN. Government reports to CSW every four years.

NCWD is the supreme overseeing body. WID Focal Point mechanisms are in place. Women’s Development and Evaluation Committee reports to the NCWD. WDP 2011, National Action Plan to implement WDP 2011.

CCFP.

BDP to propose to the Government:

Bring synergies CCFP and WID FP ToR and strengthening capacity accordingly;

Strengthening IMED; OCAG; BBS sex-disaggregated data.

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Disaster management

(Flood, cyclone, drought, SLR, salinity, river erosion – resultant infrastructure damage….)

National Plan for Disaster Management, 2010-15.

Disaster Risk Reduction Action Plan, 2013-18 (MoWCA).

ccGAP, November 2013; MoEF

The National Disaster Management Policy, 2008, MoFDM

The Disaster Risk Reduction Action Plan (2013-18), MoWCA

Standing Orders on Disaster, MoDMR

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Summary points

1. -Decision made at high levels by the influence of low levels – feed-back is needed to make decisions appropriate.

2. -Women’s work is never recognized

3. -Women’s access to resources like information, land, water, services – for strengthened contribution to food security of the country.