This week, I wanted to explore the innovations of women in Africa with regards to their domestic use of water having read a sentence in the Wendoh (2005) article last week which alluded to this idea. Considering women are more likely to have control over the use of water in the home for the purposes of cleaning, cooking and drinking, it stands to reason that, in a hydrologically variable continent such as Africa, in particular Sub-Saharan Africa, women will have come up with innovative ways of using water effectively within the home.
However, I have found there to be very few articles on this topic. There certainly seems to be a gap in the literature with regards to any innovative techniques women have come up with in order to use domestic water in the most efficient way possible. The collection of water by women can actually give them the opportunity to communicate, creating social cohesion with other women (https://www.ifad.org/documents/10180/2ffa1e63-8a8e-47ed-a4aa-cbf249fafab2). Therefore, women could perhaps seize these moments to share ideas about how best to use water in the home environment, particularly as this is arguably the only space in which women have control over water and can use it in the way they see fit as they are often excluded from discussions of more larger scale water management issues.
There seems to be a real focus in both literature and research on women’s exclusion from water management issues as well as how local governance and NGOs can include women in decision-making processes. There does not seem to be any real recognition of how women have themselves come up with innovative uses of water within their domain.
Certainly empowering women to be able to participate in decision-making processes and improving their access to land for agriculture is important, but this does ignore what women are doing now and seems to dismiss the fact that women have been coming up with their own small scale water management ‘schemes’ within their homes. I am not suggesting that women’s current actions are suitable and there shouldn’t be improvement or change, but perhaps the first stages of improvement need to not dismiss the actions of women in Africa at present and actually use these innovations in order to begin empowering women, giving them control over their empowerment rather than defining it for them.
I think it is important to remember that when empowering any stakeholder or community in water management issues, whether solely women or any other marginalised group, solutions cannot just come from above and then be enforced onto that particular community. Communities and stakeholders need to consulted for any ideas they have developed or thought of themselves as communities can come up with small-scale solutions that can be implemented with the help of other actors rather than the actors coming in and dictating how the community should act.
If any readers of this post do know of studies undertaken which assess current innovations of women in Africa with regards to the domestic use of water, I would be grateful for any comments.
References
Wendoh, S., & Wallace, T. (2005). Re-thinking gender mainstreaming in African NGOs and communities. Gender & Development, 13(2), 70-79.
Hey Phoebe, I could not agree with this post more!
ReplyDeleteA reason why many water management and sanitation schemes don't work is because NGOs often lift successful initiatives and impose them on a new community. However, in order to for a scheme to be truly successful, they need to take a case-by-case approach and really get to understand the local knowledge and practices already in place and help build on that.
While I do not know of any examples in Africa, there is an interesting in looking at the slums dwellers associations in India who have planned, funded and started their own community toilets programme:
http://www.iied.org/how-indias-slum-pavement-dwellers-made-sanitation-affordable
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ReplyDeleteI think it is quite sad that academics/reports haven't looked into the ways women manage water in their own home! In most academic literature, I've found that whenever a link is made between women and water in Africa, it is mostly about their role in the collection of water. I do agree it would be more interesting to find out how they actually manage water as being in charge of domestic chore. Is there any literature on the management of water in general within households in Africa without regards to women in particular?
ReplyDeleteHi Sristi and Shriya, thanks so much for your comments! I completely agree with you Sristi that NGOs need to be more sensitive to particular scenarios and understand water management issues across the global South and particularly Africa are not homogenous. The article you have cited is a fantastic example of how a community has worked together to address their sanitation needs, but I think it would be good if more research was done into how individuals, specifically women, use water individually within their home and the techniques they themselves have come up with in order to make water use more effective. I think NGOs and academics perhaps gloss over the initiatives of individuals to discuss community schemes and public water use on a larger scale without analysing water use at the small-scale household level. This links to Shriya's point about how academic literature regarding women and water in Africa does focus mainly on their role as collectors of water. Having looked into whether there is any literature on the management of water in general within households in Africa, rather than just women in particular, I am still struggling to find papers handling this topic. It seems that issues of water are mainly discussed at a community level in terms of how water can be supplied or improved and relatively little is stated about the initiatives of individuals which is, in my opinion, an oversight. Thanks so much again for your comments Shriya and Sristi!
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