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Meinzen-Dick, Ruth Suseela; Zwarteveen, Margreet

doi:10.1023/a:1007533018254

Cited by 139 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…While focusing on women's household use of water has resulted in some allocation of water for domestic use and women's participation on WUAs, it obscures the fact that women 'almost everywhere use water both for productive and domestic purposes' (Zwarteveen, 1997(Zwarteveen, , p. 1337. These findings echo those of other researchers who emphasize that informal means for obtaining irrigation services are less secure because they rely on the discretion of pump operators, or on the agency and assertiveness of individual women irrigators (Meinzen-Dick & Zwarteveen, 1998).…”

Section: Participation In Wuassupporting

confidence: 86%

“…Although women's roles in water management are better recognized today, perhaps because of over four decades of research and scholarship on gender and development, gender issues continue to 'remain under-theorized and marginal in much water literature' (Laurie, 2011, p. 172-173). Meinzen-Dick & Zwarteveen (1998) call for detailed and comparative research in different world regional contexts on the major factors that affect women's participation in irrigation management and control over irrigation resources. They emphasize that it is particularly important to ensure equitable participation of women in irrigation since control of water resources is increasingly being transferred from centralized entities such as water boards and utilities to community institutions such as local WUAs.…”

Section: Irrigation Gender Norms Technologies and Participationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Women, irrigation and social norms in Egypt: ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same?’

Najjar¹,

Baruah

Garhi

2019

Water Policy

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This paper explores how women and men participate in irrigation activities in Egypt, drawing from a survey administered to 200 men and 202 women and qualitative information from 150 interviews. Women participated in irrigation activities in 78% of the 402 households surveyed, suggesting that women are far more actively engaged in irrigation efforts in Egypt, and possibly in the wider MENA region, than is generally assumed. The diffusion of certain irrigation technologies such as drip, sprinkler and tatweer in recent years has made irrigation more socially acceptable for women to perform although some women had also been irrigating land long before these technologies became available. We identify land ownership, educational attainment, institutional support from government, donors and NGOs, and access to training in irrigational technologies as factors that enable women to optimally undertake irrigation. These factors enabled women to participate meaningfully in public institutions related to irrigation, such as water user associations (WUAs). Finally, we discovered that desire and ability to participate in WUAs declined dramatically for both women and men when institutional support was withdrawn or eroded. Thus, the paper concludes that we must look at a variety of social categories and relationships to understand women's involvement in irrigation and to identify ways to strengthen it.

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Section: Participation In Wuassupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Irrigation Gender Norms Technologies and Participationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women, irrigation and social norms in Egypt: ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same?’

Najjar¹,

Baruah

Garhi

2019

Water Policy

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“…But beyond a shared requisite for water, the organizational label of "Water Users' Association" indicates very little about the qualities of would-be members, suggesting an inclusive design wherein all those who use water in pursuit of life or livelihood are eligible to participate and benefit through collective action. Grounded in dominant development theory and a belief in the ability of participatory, locally-based projects to empower without exception and equitably distribute resources, the enthusiastic introduction of WUAs has continued despite a rich body of literature arguing that these anticipated outcomes often fail to manifest [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. The continued popularity of "participatory" natural resource management organizations signals that even with decades of critique, this area of study should not be seen as saturated but rather as warranting sustained attention to the variegated ways projects may perpetuate uneven power relations across the globe.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The User and the Association: Neglecting Household Irrigation as Neglecting Household Well-Being in the Creation of Water Users’ Associations in the Republic of Tajikistan

MacDonald¹

2019

Water

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Development initiatives often cite Water Users’ Associations (WUAs) as fundamental to water governance reform or the broad process of decentralizing responsibilities for management, supply and delivery. But the label of “WUA” indicates little about those who take on these duties as association members, suggesting all who use water in pursuit of life or livelihood are eligible to participate and benefit through collective action. Grounded in the belief that participatory projects can equitably empower and distribute resources, the enthusiastic introduction of WUAs continues despite critique that anticipated outcomes are overstated. Since borders opened to neoliberal development institutions in the 1990s, WUAs have been created throughout post-Soviet Central Asia. Yet, there has been limited reflection on how associations’ design and operation interact with physical or social structures to effect resource access across diverse groups. Drawing on fieldwork in Tajikistan, I demonstrate how WUAs reproduce exclusionary outcomes by requiring members to possess farmland in turn threatening rural food security. Held by a minority, farmland dedicated to commercial production stands in contrast to ubiquitous kitchen gardens, where crops sown for self-consumption form a buffer against hunger in the wake of labor migration and income inconsistency. Households’ inability to become members undermines their claim to water and voice in decision-making, ultimately constraining access to irrigation and a robust harvest.

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“…The factors explaining this include a lack of experience in a specific field, low levels of education, specific rules that exclude women, and institutional factors ranging from norms and values to local social and political structures (Meinzen-Dick and Zwarteveen 1998;Agarwal 2001;Zwarteveen and Meinzen-Dick 2001;Schreiner et al 2004;Singh 2008, 936). For example, Meinzen-Dick and Zwarteveen show that female participation in Asian water users' associations is much lower and ranges between zero and 15%.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Travelling models of participation: Global ideas and local translations of water management in Namibia

Schnegg

Linke

2016

Int J Commons

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Abstract:In recent decades, water management in Namibia has profoundly changed. Beginning in the 1990s the Namibian state has incrementally turned ownership of and the responsibility for its rural water supply to local user groups. While the state withdrew from managing resources directly, it continued to circumscribe the ways in which local communities should govern them. In so doing, a "new commons" was created. Inclusive participation became the leitmotif of the new management scheme and in particular the participation of women was a major political and societal goal. In this article, we use the notion of travelling models as a theoretical guide to explore how the idea of participation emerged in international development discourses and how it was then translated through national legislation into the local context. The results of the analysis show that more than 20 years after the formulation of international conventions the average participation of women in local water committees remains low. However, older women do manage the funds associated with water and thus occupy one of the most important functions. Our explanation takes the wider social and cultural field into account and shows that gender and generational roles provide elder women with autonomy and authority which prepare their ways into these new official roles. We conclude by considering whether and how the travelling model of participation has been changing local social structures in general and the role of elder women in particular.

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Cited by 139 publications

References 16 publications

Women, irrigation and social norms in Egypt: ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same?’

Women, irrigation and social norms in Egypt: ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same?’

The User and the Association: Neglecting Household Irrigation as Neglecting Household Well-Being in the Creation of Water Users’ Associations in the Republic of Tajikistan

Travelling models of participation: Global ideas and local translations of water management in Namibia

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