Report of “Women for Water” contribution and involvement
in World Water Forum 3, Kyoto, Japan
From the 15 – 24th of march 2003 the 3 World Water Forum was held in Kyoto, Japan.
On behalf of BPW, Lesha Witmer – chair of the taskforce Women for Water of BPW I – and Alice Bouman – BPW the Netherlands and member of the standing committee on environment of BPW – participated. BPW worked closely together with women organizations from the Netherlands, Germany, Sri Lanka, etc. under the “umbrella” of the “Women for Water initiative”, that was started in Johannesburg last year.
The Netherlands Council of Women (NVR), together with Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF), Business & Professional Women International (BPWI) and the Network of Women Water Professionals in Sri Lanka (NetWwater), has organized two sessions during WWF3 on the connection between water, poverty eradication, sustainable development and gender. The women organizations / delegation as mentioned above – including BPW - also played a leading role in the collaborative efforts of women’s organizations present in Kyoto to bring forward their perspective on Integrated Water Resources Management into the ministerial meetings as well as in the sessions organized by the other stakeholders. They co-organized the daily women’s caucus meeting where the women’s organisations agreed on common advocacy activities. Interventions were made in sessions during the Forum, notably on the themes of ‘Water Supply, Sanitation, Hygiene and Water Pollution’, ‘Water, Nature & Environment’, ‘Water & governance’, and during Europe Day. Furthermore, through its publication ‘Water, Equity and Money’, the NVR introduced Gender Responsive Budgeting in the water sector as a practical tool for pro-poor sustainable development and a first step for governments to live up to their commitments as laid down in numerous international fora and agreements.
During the sessions on March 17th (Gender Programme) and March 21st (Europe Day), grass-roots women’s organizations from Romania, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Sri Lanka presented their practical and affordable solutions for the provision of drinking water and sanitation, and suggested that governments learn from these projects and promote their replication. The projects had been filmed on location in the four weeks preceding the Forum. Through these documentaries a large number of grass-roots women and community members, although not physically present, were/are enabled to present their work and recommendations to the audience in Kyoto and beyond.
The following commitments resulted from the sessions:
· 4 large grassroots women’s networks based in Ukraine, Romania, Netherlands and Germany, 4 local authorities, 1 university and 3 water companies[1] have committed to implement 4 replicable programmes to develop low-cost immediate solutions to polluted drinking water in rural areas by addressing the sources of pollution through eco-sanitation, organic farming, and other ecological technologies and to strengthen civil society’s role as partner.
· 6 large international women’s networks[2] will build on the “Women for Water” Initiative launched in Johannesburg to unite forces of existing women’s organizations and networks for the development and implementation of gender-sensitive and pro-poor Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM).
· The government of The Netherlands has made a commitment to include women’s water actions in their integrated water resources management activities.
· The government of Sri Lanka committed to establish a new unit in the Ministry of Irrigation & Water Management for mainstreaming gender.
Specific recommendations on gender and women’s participation in IWRM include:
· Gender Responsive Budget Initiatives (GRBIs) should be introduced in the water sector, as these will enable governments, donors, multi-lateral agencies and civil society organizations to be accountable to their commitments to gender equity, poverty eradication, sustainable development and rights-based governance.
· An inter-ministerial dialogue on gender should be established and incorporated into the existing ministerial networks. This should be supported by regular contact between the public sector and civil society in order to ensure an ongoing exchange on the progress made on gender mainstreaming in IWRM.
· Women's organisations should form a Global Women's Water Watch enhancing the implementation of the Women's Water Agenda. Such a platform could provide governments with valuable feedback on the impact of globalisation as well as national and local water policies on gender equality goals.
· Qualitative indicators are needed to monitor the impact of gender mainstreaming and empowerment of women on sustainable development.
· Gender-sensitive, environmentally sound, locally appropriate and affordable technologies are needed to realize the water and sanitation targets established for the WSSD and in the MDGs
During the Europe-day session, recommendations were formulated for the European Commission’s Water for Life initiative. Participants agreed that Water for Life is a good initiative, but that we don’t want to wait until 2012 or 2015 to get safe water. And we don’t want to be among the 50% who will NOT get access to drinking water. The participants recalled that not only in developing countries, but also in countries in transition the majority of the population living in rural areas has no sanitation infrastructure and drink polluted well water. This represents for instance 11 million people in Ukraine and 7 million people in Romania. The governments and citizens of these countries do not have the financial means to pay for the expensive and often in-efficient centralized infrastructure as used in Western Europe. Low cost sustainable solutions can be implemented immediately and even help create local employment. Successful programmes need to be carried by the local communities, should have a gender perspective and require equal participation of women at all levels.
The participants from the Europe day session therefore recommend the following:
· Promote affordable efficient sustainable solutions such as eco-sanitation, organic farming, rainwater-harvesting and decentralized waste-water treatment
· Develop Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) at all levels and include a building block on gender with a well-balanced representation of civil society grassroots women’s organizations into the European Initiative Water for Life.
The grass roots women also presented their concerns about public-private partnerships. MAMA-86 for example, shared its negative experience with a French water multinational which, supported by EBRD, tried to obtain a concession for the Odessa water works and whose activities have lead to a roll-back of public participation and neglect of multi-stakeholder solutions. They recommended to:
· Provide free high-quality legal services to local authorities, national authorities and civil society organisations to fully understand the consequences of public-private partnership negotiations, so that public control over public-private partnership can be guaranteed.
Maybe the SC on legislation of BPW can be of assistance?
Participation in various sessions throughout the Forum leads us to the observation that:
- The need for gender mainstreaming is now often stated explicitly in general introductions and theoretical deliberations. However in the various case studies presented, the gender dimension was notably absent. The gap between principles and practise remains.
- Grassroots women are usually target groups for development projects and not equal partners to their own development. Attention for and commitment to invest in facilitating the participation of women as a major group is still hard to obtain.
- In solutions presented to solve the water crisis, top-down technical solutions prevail, exacerbated by the emphasis on public-private partnerships.
Interesting and promising contacts were made fi. with women – and cicil society groups from the Nile basin (Egypt, Kenia, Tanzania, Uganda) and Nigeria; the “Women for Water initiative” – including BPW – will see in what way we can work together in future projects concerning water(management).
Numerous representatives of women’s organisations worldwide have expressed the urgent need for empowerment of local women’s organisations and to create an enabling environment for them to take an active part in tailor made IWRM.
ACT LOCALLY, JOIN FORCES GLOBALLY !!
Mrs. A. Bouman, Committee on sustainable development of the Netherlands Women Council, member of BPW the Netherlands and member of the Standing committee on environment of BPW I.
Mrs. L. Witmer, international taskforce “Women for Water” BPW I.