INVESTMENT NOTE 10.1
GENDER, PARTICIPATION
AND DECENTRALIZATION
IN AGRICULTURAL WATER
MANAGEMENT
The user target group for agricultural
water management investment projects
is highly diverse: women and men,
landowners
and
tenants,
and
communities cultivating communal land
without clear ownership title. Taking this
diversity into account through inclusive
participatory project design and
implementation is critical for poverty
alleviation, gender equity, and water
productivity, especially in female and
dual farming systems. Membership of
Water Users Associations should include
all the user groups. A more recently
recognized form of diversity relates to
multiple water uses and the need for
water for both productive and domestic
water uses.
INVESTMENT AREA
The target group of agricultural water
development,
management
and
protection projects is highly diverse and
extends far beyond the traditionally
assumed target group of male farm
household heads who own land, and
represent
a
supposedly-unitary
household where all resources and
benefits are pooled and then shared
equitably.
This diversity exists also among poor
water users who face constraints to
voicing
their
needs
due
to:
misconceptions
about
the
intrahousehold organization of farming; land
tenure arrangements especially where
communal land and tenancy forms
prevail; and non-agricultural water
needs. Firstly, diversity exists in the
intra-household organization of farming
(male-; female- and dual- farming
systems)1 particularly relating to who
makes decisions on farming. This
depends on both the local prevailing
farming system and household-specific
characteristics such as
male outmigration; disability; or other capacity
issues. Diversity thus exists in the tenure
arrangements of farm decision-makers,
including, for example, entitlements to
land and water resources for crop
cultivation and other uses. Thirdly,
diversity exists in water needs in poor
rural areas where household livelihoods
are diversified and water-dependent. For
example, women and men use water for
domestic purposes; cropping; gardening;
livestock; fisheries; trees and nurseries;
and small enterprises.
Recognition of this diversity is critical
for pro-poor and gender-equitable design
and implementation of agricultural water
investments.
Key questions in the design process
include: Who is the target? Whose land
is to be improved? Who should be
allocated newly-developed irrigation
plots? What membership criteria
including gender quotas, should be set
for new Water Users Associations
(WUAs) during Irrigation Management
Transfer? How much water should be
1
Van Koppen drawing on Safiliou 1988
has categorized farming systems as: male-; femaleor dual-farming systems according to whether
farm decision-makers are predominantly male or
female, or both (with the gender division of labor
depending on such factors as land tenure; and male
out-migration).
reserved for uses other than field crop
irrigation?
Women agricultural producers are also a
diverse group: laborers, independent
farm decision-makers and traders.
Although many projects assume a
benevolent ‘unitary household model’,
research indicates that intra-household
organization of farming can be
understood best as a ‘bargaining model’
where household members negotiate
implicitly with each other to secure
resources for their own production subunit, from their different – and often
hierarchical
bargaining positions
(Quisumbing 1996; Haddad 1997).
Further,
bargaining
power
is
asymmetrically allocated. The resulting
‘gender yield differential’ has been
calculated by Udry et al (1995) who
examined plot-level agronomic data in
Burkina Faso for households where men
and women controlled different plots but
were raising the same crop. Due to
prevailing gender relations, inputs of
labor, manure, and fertilizer were
applied with differential intensity (with
men’s plots receiving more inputs),
resulting in reduced overall household
input and allocative inefficiency in that
resources were neither pooled nor traded
among household members.
The
production function in this study
estimated that with a reallocation of
these factors of production between
men’s and women’s plots, household
output could be increased overall by 1020 percent (ibid).
As noted above, different production
sub-units are managed by different adult
members.
Household
horticulture;
livestock; irrigated plots; and small
enterprises tend to be typically managed
by either men or by women in particular
farming systems, according to longestablished practices and traditions
(Safiliou 1988). These areas of control
are dynamic and can respond quickly to
changes in opportunities and incentive
structures, whether due to market forces
such as the development of alternative
employment and income sources; or
project-based incentives such as
targeting of extension services or other
inputs to women; or new assets such as
collectively-held
infrastructure
or
resources providing, for example, fruit
nurseries organized by women’s
cooperatives.
In addition, land ownership and de facto
farm decision-making need not coincide
as, for example, the (male) land owner
may be absent; or women farmers may
cultivate the land of their male in-laws.
In Asia and among the poor, the actual
water user is often a tenant or
sharecropper
without
land
title.
Alternatively, land tenure may be
communally-held, without a single
owner. Such tenure arrangements must
be considered in the project design and
targeting, as well as in WUA
membership criteria in order to reduce
the possibility of social exclusion.
Finally, rural people’s water needs are
diverse. This is clear from the universal
observation that whether planned or not,
publicly supported ‘irrigation’ water is
typically used for many purposes other
than irrigation, such as domestic uses
and livestock. Such unplanned uses are
equally observed in publicly-supported
domestic water schemes. The dichotomy
between water for ‘domestic’ and
‘productive’ purposes according to
sector-based structuring of the water
sector, fails to fit the reality of people’s
needs. While it is well recognized that
2
women are engaged in obtaining water
for domestic and productive uses, men
also contribute to domestic water
provision for the health of their families.
Recognizing women’s and men’s
multiple water needs opens up new
investment opportunities for synergistic
multiple-use water services.
POTENTIAL BENEFITS
Taking into account the diversity among
the target group is crucial for the
project's efficiency and its impact on
reducing poverty.
Gender-sensitive
design
and
implementation of agricultural water
development and management projects,
including the creation of inclusive
criteria for WUAs, is a matter of gender
equity and a necessary condition for the
project to reach its productivity goals
(see Box 10.1.1). This is especially the
case in those areas or those farming
types where approximately half the farm
decision-makers are women (that is, in
dual farming systems) and even more
crucial where women form the majority
of farm decision-makers (see Box
10.1.2). Increased and improved
attention to gender in agricultural
projects in Africa, in particular, is likely
to translate into immediate productivity
gains, due to the region’s high ‘gender
intensity of production’ with women
providing 80 per cent of the food crop
and non-traditional agricultural export
labor force ( Blackden and Bhanu,
1999).
Strengthening women’s land and water
tenure security, and access to
agricultural
inputs
and
markets,
encourages women farmers to make
long-term investments in land-bound
water technologies. This is pivotal for
agricultural growth in general.
Box 10.1.1 GENDER, PRODUCTIVITY, AND
WETLAND IMPROVEMENT IN BURKINA
FASO
Women farmers are as productive as men
farmers, provided they have equal access to
resources and inputs, and control their
agricultural outputs (Quisumbing 1997). In
female farming systems of wetlands in south west
Burkina Faso, gender-sensitivity in the project
design appeared the single most important
success factor for a rice project that improved
infrastructure and agronomic practices. Initially,
the improved plots were allocated to ‘male heads
of households’, while women were supposed to
continue providing all the labor. Women were
also excluded from the Water Users Associations
because membership was vested in the land
owner. Without their customary control over the
output, women lost their motivation to cultivate.
Men generally failed to fulfill their infrastructure
maintenance obligations. And this led to
infrastructure decline and even partial
abandonment of the ‘improved’ schemes.
In later schemes, the allocation procedures
changed at the initiative of women plot holders,
their male kin, and male and female land chiefs.
New plots were allocated first to existing plot
holders. Men were explicitly invited to apply for
new rice plots. Women, however, were the
majority of new applicants. Membership was
vested in the farm decision-makers. Women
fulfilled their obligations of infrastructure
maintenance work and reaped the benefits.
Source: Van Koppen 2000.
In male farming systems as found in
northern Europe and South Asia,
women generally work as unpaid family
laborers, and are excluded from farm
decision-making. To enhance gender
equity in these systems requires
addressing more deep-rooted gender
discrimination. Agricultural marketing
cooperatives for women, such as those
3
sponsored by SEWA (http://sewa.org)
in India, may be a highly effective way
for women to undertake their own
income generating activities. The Uttar
Pradesh Sodic Lands II Project in India
also found credit self-help groups for
women farmers to be highly effective as
a project intervention, especially when
complemented by separate men’s and
women’s water user groups at subvillage level (Kuriakose et al 2005).
Irrigation development projects often
include land titling components. In
addition, these projects can recognise
and support women who are sole farm
decision-makers as heads of households
and who have to contribute labor inputs
to meet land reclamation or maintenance
requirements. The labor contribution is
especially important as this is often the
basis for acquiring land or water rights.
Women may also be excluded from
WUA membership and the opportunities
for
effective participation and
leadership and they may have limited
access to agricultural extension. If
seclusion norms limit a public role for
women or even contact with non-family
or non-local persons, especially if male,
it is important that the project design
ensures that female extension agents are
on the staff of irrigation and agricultural
agencies.
Box 10.1.2
SYSTEMS
GENDER
AND
FARMING
Female and dual farming systems are widespread
in southern and eastern Africa where 50 - and in
some districts up to - 90 percent of the farms are
female managed. This is due to off-farm
employment opportunities and male outmigration, and to a long-standing cultural
division of farming activities in which livestock
keeping tends to be managed by men, while
cropping is managed by women (Safiliou 1994).
Rice cultivation in wetlands in western Africa is
another example, where women are often the
majority of farm decision-makers (Van Koppen
2000). In Asia too, there are areas where women
constitute the majority of farm decision-makers,
as in Nepal.
(Zwarteveen and Neupane 1996).
Box 10.1.3 TENANCY, SOCIO-SPATIAL
EXCLUSION AND WUA MEMBERSHIP
In Punjab, Pakistan tenants’ rights to join farmer
organizations (FO) vary depending on the nature
of the tenancy arrangement. More ‘permanent’
tenants long associated with a certain plot of land
are often delegated the right to organizational
membership, though this remains the prerogative
of the landlord, and is thus vulnerable to
manipulation. Tenants whose arrangements vary
more often (for example, annually) abstain from
joining the FO as it is considered a long-term
institutional arrangement incompatible with their
rapid tenure turnover
Spatial settlement patterns also matter for
inclusion in FOs. In Punjab, residents of one
‘additional settlement’ on the outskirts of the
main village were forced to organize their own
formal FO when they were not permitted by
main village farmers to join that organization.
The new FO then forced the main village FO to
allocate water fairly between the two parts of the
village.
Source: Kuriakose et al Forthcoming.
Recognizing and responding to the
multiple forms of land tenure and titling
arrangements in farming systems helps
ensure that the project design supports
actual farm decision-makers (including
women and tenants)
rather than
absentee landowners or male kin who
may have fewer interests in agricultural
production and irrigation scheme
operation and maintenance (see Box
10.1.3).
The starting point for water project
design is support for multiple-use water
services that take into account total
4
needs of water users. This is especially
important for women and the poor who
depend more upon public investments
than wealthier farmers. For the poor, the
unplanned use of ‘irrigation’ water for
fisheries and livestock is also
particularly important. For women,
domestic uses of ‘irrigation’ water have
often been the major benefit of
‘irrigation’ projects. Water management
planning based on multiple needs has
proven to have many benefits that are
pro-poor and gender-equitable and
generate:

Improved Well-being in Areas of
food, income, and health. Multi-use
systems are gender-friendly by
design as domestic uses are
recognized as a priority use, even in
‘irrigation’ settings. They address
health issues holistically, aiming at
incremental improvements in access
to water for drinking. Such an
approach acknowledges that access
to more water has important hygiene
and health effects, especially when
combined with point-of-use water
treatment to improve water quality
for drinking whether as part of
formal drinking water supply
projects or in more generic water
delivery projects.

Improved
Sustainability
and
Ownership
through:
higher
willingness to pay for services that
better
meet
people’s
needs,
especially when compared to
‘domestic-only’
schemes;
strengthened ability to pay; stronger
ownership by communities, who
have long been designing their own
means of water management for
multiple purposes; avoidance of
damage to the system, common
when single-use systems are used
for multiple purposes in an
unplanned fashion (for example,
erosion from livestock uses); more
equitable and efficient impact by
ensuring that poor people’s domestic
and productive basic water needs are
met; and higher water productivity
through optimal use of the resource.

Modest Incremental Cost, though
Attention to Management Issues is
Required.
The
basic
water
technologies
(storage,
lifting,
conveyance, and drainage) for
multiple water uses are similar to
single-use schemes and , the way in
which these technology components
are assembled allows for water use
for various purposes. In this way,
incremental costs for multiple-use
technologies may be low. However,
management issues may be complex,
involving participatory and needsbased water planning and allocation
and other trade-offs, particularly
between reserving water for daily
domestic and livestock uses, versus
allocating water for crop irrigation
purposes with rotational and seasonbased delivery. Differences among
uses in water delivery timing and
duration, quantity, and quality need
to be taken into account for multipleuse management. However, one
integrated Water User Association
avoids parallel committees for
‘domestic’ uses, ‘irrigation’ and so
on, for the same water resources
used by the same households.
Multiple government departments
are also involved and have
to
address such issues as water quality
that arise in multiple-water use
planning environments.
5

At the plot or household level:
Designing water supply to meet
women’s and men’s productive and
domestic uses (for example, home
gardening by women; no night turns
or distributions in irrigation schemes;
joint titling of irrigated land).

At the project level: Designing
special elements in ‘irrigation’
schemes such as washing steps for
laundry use; cattle entry points for
livestock
watering;
year-round
reservoirs for cattle and domestic
uses and providing
year-round
availability for such uses.

At the community or collective level:
Including women and men in multipurpose WUAs (including all water
uses); vesting membership in all
water users, and for agricultural
water use: vesting membership with
the farm decision-maker, irrespective
of gender and type of land tenure;
ensuring convenient timings of
meeting, transport, and venues; and
establishing transparent and open
procedures in WUA meetings.

At the local-leadership level:
Including women and the poor in
decision-making bodies, such as
WUA committees. In setting quotas,
gender composition should, at a
minimum,
reflect
the
actual
proportion of women and men
farmers. Leaders from marginalized
groups need to be supported and
trained in their new roles (see
Box10.1.4).
POLICY AND IMPLEMENTATION
Box 10.1.4 GENDER MAINSTREAMING IN
PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION
Inclusive water users association (WUA)
membership criteria have been developed as part
of the Maharashtra Water Sector Improvement
Project in India, approved by the Bank’s Board
in 2005. In line with the State Irrigation Act
2005, WUAs in the project are mandated to have
women members as part of the general body and
executive committee. Gender and tribal
strategies exist for the project, following a
comprehensive social assessment undertaken for
the project on gender, tribal and other issues.
Additionally, an Environment and Social
Development Sub-Unit within the project has
been set up to help ensure that social objectives
are achieved. Such attention to gender and social
vulnerability within the project cycle and project
implementation mechanisms is expected to yield
good results on both social and economic
outcomes.
Source: World Bank Maharashtra Water Sector
Improvement Project. P084790.
Project
Appraisal Document. 2005.
Implications for gender; land tenure
forms; and multiple water needs should
be assessed and considered from the
beginning of the project in order to
design holistically for women’s and
men’s domestic and productive water
needs. This can best be done through
participatory project planning and
implementation to prevent elite capture
of the benefits of the project and allow
for project beneficiaries or their
representatives to effectively voice their
needs, preferences, opportunities, and
constraints.
Such participatory planning requires
resources and can imply the following:
Box
10.1.5
SOCIO-ECONOMIC
STRATIFICATION AND ACCESS TO
WATER FOR LIVESTOCK WATERING
6
An International Water Management Institute
study in Pakistan found that socio-economic
level affected households’ access to water for
livestock watering. Better-off households living
on larger farms were able to keep their animals
in stalls on their home compound bathing and
watering the animals with the same domestic
water the family used (that is, groundwater from
hand pumps, motor pumps and wells). Ninetyfive percent of respondents from such
households found water sources sufficient for
their animals. In contrast, poorer households
(and those few households who lived near their
fields further from the village) had to drive their
animals to canal watercourses and distributaries
for watering and bathing. Only 71 per cent of
such respondents found these water access
arrangements satisfactory. Further, livestock use
of canal water is illegal and pollutes the
distributary water for downstream domestic
users. Notably, the traditional livestock pond
held in common in each village is now being
degraded by release of waste water and sewage
by those households with private sources of
water .
‘irrigation’ sector can broaden its
objectives in a similar way. This may
lead to improved sustainability of
systems.

In female and dual farming systems,
gender-sensitive project design is a
particularly important route to
achieving water productivity and
gender equity.

In male farming systems, varied
interventions are required given
prevailing gender norms. Here
separate women’s organizations can
be highly effective.

Land ownership as a membership
criterion for WUAs tends to exclude
poor and female farmers holding
secondary tenancy; intra-household;
or communal land rights. Such
exclusion of water users can
jeopardize the functioning of the
association.

Quota systems are an effective way
of ensuring representation for
women’s interests in water decisionmaking organizations.
Source: Kuriakose et al Forthcoming.
LESSONS LEARNED
 Women and men; adults and
children;
agriculturalists;
pastoralists; fishermen and women;
or small scale entrepreneurs have
different, multiple water needs, due
to their diversified livelihoods. The
opportunities to meet these unmet
water needs through multiple-use
water services provision are still
largely untapped ( see Box10.1.5).

For women and the poor, the nonirrigation uses of ‘irrigation’ water
are often a priority. While WUAs
rarely include all water users, the
domestic water sector increasingly
initiates water supply provisions that
take poor people’s multiple water
needs as the starting point. The
RECOMMENDATIONS
FOR
PRACTITIONERS
 Provide for target group diversity
with an open, inclusive and needsbased design of the project without
a priori assumptions about people’s
water needs, and which enables the
target group to articulate its needs.

Base gender-sensitive design on
women’s and men’s multiple water
needs; on a sound understanding of
the gender role in the farming
system; and on targeting women
7
farm decision-makers on the same
basis as men farm decision-makers,
at farm level, at community and
collective level, and in leadership
positions.

Ensure inclusive WUA membership
criteria, irrespective of gender and
type of land titles

Set quotas in WUAs to ensure that
leadership composition reflects, at
least, the gender division among
farmer members, and that general
representation reflects equal gender
composition.
INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES
 Water development and management
projects with participatory and
inclusive planning and design,
should provide for multiple water
needs, especially of poor women and
men
and
include
low-cost
infrastructure for multiple uses; and
financing earmarked for multiple-use
application.



Support
capacity-building
for
members of marginalized groups and
women to participate as members
and leaders in WUAs.
Support capacity-building in water
agencies to improve analytical skills
among staff; and to provide skills to
assess and to develop pro-poor and
gender-responsive agricultural water
management policies.
Support the recruitment of female
extension agents to sector agencies,
and the targeting of female farmers
in the delivery of agricultural
services .
REFERENCES CITED
Bakker, Margaretha, Randolph Barker,
Ruth S. Meinzen-Dick and Flemming
Konradsen. 1999. Multiple Uses of
Water in Irrigated Areas: A Case Study
from Sri Lanka. SWIM Report 8.
Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water
Management Institute .
Blackden, Mark and C. Bhanu. 1999.
Gender, Growth and Poverty Reduction:
Special Program of Assistance for Africa
– Status Report on Poverty in SubSaharan Africa. Washington DC.:.
World Bank
Haddad, L., J. Hoddinott, and H.
Alderman (eds). 1997. Intra-household
Resource Allocation in Developing
Countries: Methods, Models and Policy.
Baltimore: John Hopkins University
Press for the International Food Policy
and Research Institute
Kuriakose, Anne T., Waqar A. Jehangir,
and Mehmood ul-Hassan. Forthcoming.
“Will the Diggi Go Dry? Multiple Uses
of Irrigation Water in Punjab.” Pakistan.
Society and Natural Resources.
Kuriakose, Anne T. et al. 2005. “Gender
Mainstreaming in Water Resources
Management.” ARD Internal Paper.
Washington DC: World Bank.
Quisumbing, Agnes. 1996. “MaleFemale Differences in Agricultural
Productivity: Methodological Issues and
Empirical
Evidence.”
World
Development. Vol. 24. No. 10. pp 15791595. Great Britain: Elsevier Science
Ltd
8
Safiliou, Constantina. 1988. “Farming
Systems and Gender Issues: Implications
for Agricultural Training and Projects.”
Unpublished
paper.
Ministry
of
Agriculture and Fisheries of the
Netherlands and the International
Agricultural Centre. Wageningen
Safiliou,
Constantina.
1994
“Agricultural Policies and Women
Producers.” In
Gender, Work and
Population in Sub-Saharan Africa, ed.
Aderanti Adepoju and Christine
Oppong,
International
Labour
Organization. London: James Currey
and Heinemann
Udry, Christopher, D. Hoddinott, H.
Alderman, and L. Haddad. 1995.
“Gender
Differentials
in
Farm
Productivity: Implications for Household
Efficiency and Agricultural Policy.”
Food Policy. 20(5).
Van Koppen, Barbara. 2000 “Wetland
Improvement in Burkina Faso.” In
Negotiating Water Rights, Bryan Bruns
and Ruth Meinzen-Dick. India: SAGE
WORLD
BANK
DISCUSSED
Merrey, Douglas J., and Shirish Baviskar
(eds). 1998. Gender Analysis and
Reform of Irrigation Management:
Concepts, Cases and Gaps in
Knowledge. Proceedings of the
Workshop on Gender and Water.
September 1997. Colombo, Sri Lanka:
International Water Management
Institute
Van Koppen, Barbara. 2002. “A Gender
Performance Indicator for Irrigation.
Concepts, Tools, and Applications.”
Research Report 59. Colombo: Sri
Lanka: International Water Management
Institute
Van Koppen, Barbara, Patrick Moriarty,
and Eline Boelee. 2006. “Multiple-Use
Water Services to Advance the
Millennium
Development
Goals.”
Research Report 98. International Water
Management Institute. Colombo, Sri
Lanka: International Water Management
Institute.
This Note was prepared by Barbara van
Koppen of IWMI and Anne T. Kuriakose,
and reviewed by Ruth Meinzen-Dick of
IFPRI and Eija Pehu.
PROJECTS
India. “Uttar Pradesh Sodic Lands
Reclamation Project II”. Active. Project
ID: P050646. Approved: 1998.
India. “Maharashtra Water Sector
Improvement Project”. Active. Project
ID: P084790. Approved: 2005.
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