October 19, 2012

2012: Highlight # 14

Women are under-represented in all aspects of irrigation management: bureaucracies, NGOs as well as WUAs. Seema Kulkarni argues for a re-conceptualization of the "culture of irrigation"...

Redefining Irrigation as if Gender mattered

Seema Kulkarni



Across the different kinds of organizations working on water related issues, we find a visible absence of women as water professionals. At the micro level, women are organized to manage and maintain drinking water sources and infrastructure, but they are absent in the irrigation sector which relates more to commodity production. At the meso level, civil society groups hardly have women water activists and even fewer articulating gender concerns in the water sector.

This Highlight explores women’s participation in the irrigation sector within the water bureaucracy as well as at the community level. The paper draws on two studies undertaken by SOPPECOM in Maharashtra: the first considers women in irrigation at the community level; and the second examines the presence of women in the water bureaucracy. It also draws on a two year long process of building capacities of women elected on the water users' associations (WUAs), the institution for participatory irrigation governance.

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