Gendered participation in water management: Issues and illustrations from water users‘ associations in South Asia

Ruth Meinzen-Dick and Margreet Zwarteveen

Agriculture and Human Values, 1998, vol. 15, issue 4, 337-345

Abstract: The widespread trend to transferirrigation management responsibility from the stateto “communities” or local user groups has byand large ignored the implications ofintra-community power differences for theeffectiveness and equity of water management. Genderis a recurrent source of such differences. Despitethe rhetoric on women‘s participation, a review ofevidence from South Asia shows that femaleparticipation is minimal in water users‘organizations. One reason for this is that theformal and informal membership criteria excludewomen. Moreover, the balance between costs andbenefits of participation is often negative forwomen because complying with the rules and practicesof the organization involves considerable time costsand social risks, whereas other ways to obtainirrigation services may be more effective for femalewater users. Although effective, these other andoften informal ways of obtaining irrigation servicesare also typically less secure. More formalparticipation of women can strengthen women‘sbargaining position as resource users withinhouseholds and communities. Greater involvement ofwomen can also strengthen the effectiveness of theorganization by improving women‘s compliance withrules and maintenance contributions. Furtherdetailed and comparative research is required toidentify the major factors that affect women‘sparticipation and control over resources, ifdevolution policies are to address the tensionbetween objectives of transferring control overresources to community institutions, and ensuringthe participation of all members of the community,especially women. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1998

Keywords: Gender; Participation; Water user associations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1998
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (46)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1007533018254 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Gender participation in water management: issues and illustrations from water users' associations in South Asia (1998)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:15:y:1998:i:4:p:337-345

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10460

DOI: 10.1023/A:1007533018254

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture and Human Values is currently edited by Harvey S. James Jr.

More articles in Agriculture and Human Values from Springer, The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla (sonal.shukla@springer.com) and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (indexing@springernature.com).