Investment Note 10.1

INVESTMENT NOTE 10.1 misconceptions about the intra- household organization of farming; land tenure arrangements especially where GENDER, PARTICIPATION communal land and tenancy forms AND DECENTRALIZATION prevail; and non-agricultural water IN AGRICULTURAL WATER needs. Firstly, diversity exists in the MANAGEMENT intra-household organization of farming (male-; female- and dual- farming systems)1 particularly relating to who The user target group for agricultural makes decisions on farming. This water management investment projects depends on both the local prevailing is highly diverse: women and men, farming system and household-specific landowners and tenants, and characteristics such as male out- communities cultivating communal land migration; disability; or other capacity without clear ownership title. Taking issues. Diversity thus exists in the tenure this diversity into account through arrangements of farm decision-makers, inclusive participatory project design including, for example, entitlements to and implementation is critical for land and water resources for crop poverty alleviation, gender equity, and cultivation and other uses. Thirdly, water productivity, especially in female diversity exists in water needs in poor and dual farming systems. Membership rural areas where household livelihoods of Water Users Associations should are diversified and water-dependent. For include all the user groups. A more example, women and men use water for recently recognized form of diversity domestic purposes; cropping; gardening; relates to multiple water uses and the livestock; fisheries; trees and nurseries; need for water for both productive and and small enterprises. domestic water uses. Recognition of this diversity is critical for pro-poor and gender-equitable design INVESTMENT AREA and implementation of agricultural water The target group of agricultural water investments. development, management and protection projects is highly diverse and Key questions in the design process extends far beyond the traditionally include: Who is the target? Whose land assumed target group of male farm is to be improved? Who should be household heads who own land, and allocated newly-developed irrigation represent a supposedly-unitary plots? What membership criteria household where all resources and including gender quotas, should be set benefits are pooled and then shared 1 equitably. Van Koppen drawing on Safiliou 1988 has categorized farming systems as: male-; female- or dual-farming systems according to whether farm This diversity exists also among poor decision-makers are predominantly male or water users who face constraints to female, or both (with the gender division of labor voicing their needs due to: depending on such factors as land tenure; and male out-migration). for new Water Users Associations livestock; irrigated plots; and small (WUAs) during Irrigation Management enterprises tend to be typically managed Transfer? How much water should be by either men or by women in particular reserved for uses other than field crop farming systems, according to long- irrigation? established practices and traditions (Safiliou 1988). These areas of control Women agricultural producers are also a are dynamic and can respond quickly to diverse group: laborers, independent changes in opportunities and incentive farm decision-makers and traders. structures, whether due to market forces Although many projects assume a such as the development of alternative benevolent ‘unitary household model’, employment and income sources; or research indicates that intra-household project-based incentives such as organization of farming can be targeting of extension services or other understood best as a ‘bargaining model’ inputs to women; or new assets such as where household members negotiate collectively-held infrastructure or implicitly with each other to secure resources providing, for example, fruit resources for their own production sub- nurseries organized by women’s unit, from their different – and often cooperatives. hierarchical bargaining positions (Quisumbing 1996; Haddad 1997). In addition, land ownership and de facto Further, bargaining power is farm decision-making need not coincide asymmetrically allocated. The resulting as, for example, the (male) land owner ‘gender yield differential’ has been may be absent; or women farmers may calculated by Udry et al (1995) who cultivate the land of their male in-laws. examined plot-level agronomic data in In Asia and among the poor, the actual Burkina Faso for households where men water user is often a tenant or and women controlled different plots but sharecropper without land title. were raising the same crop. Due to Alternatively, land tenure may be prevailing gender relations, inputs of communally-held, without a single labor, manure, and fertilizer were owner. Such tenure arrangements must applied with differential intensity (with be considered in the project design and men’s plots receiving more inputs), targeting, as well as in WUA resulting in reduced overall household membership criteria in order to reduce input and allocative inefficiency in that the possibility of social exclusion. resources were neither pooled nor traded among household members. The Finally, rural people’s water needs are production function in this study diverse. This is clear from the universal estimated that with a reallocation of observation that whether planned or not, these factors of production between publicly supported ‘irrigation’ water is men’s and women’s plots, household typically used for many purposes other output could be increased overall by 10- than irrigation, such as domestic uses 20 percent (ibid). and livestock. Such unplanned uses are equally observed in publicly-supported As noted above, different production domestic water schemes. The dichotomy sub-units are managed by different adult between water for ‘domestic’ and members. Household horticulture; ‘productive’ purposes according to

2 sector-based structuring of the water agricultural inputs and markets, sector, fails to fit the reality of people’s encourages women farmers to make needs. While it is well recognized that long-term investments in land-bound women are engaged in obtaining water water technologies. This is pivotal for for domestic and productive uses, men agricultural growth in general. also contribute to domestic water provision for the health of their families. Recognizing women’s and men’s Box 10.1.1 GENDER, PRODUCTIVITY, AND multiple water needs opens up new WETLAND IMPROVEMENT IN BURKINA investment opportunities for synergistic FASO multiple-use water services. Women farmers are as productive as men farmers, provided they have equal access to resources and inputs, and control their agricultural POTENTIAL BENEFITS outputs (Quisumbing 1997). In female farming Taking into account the diversity among systems of wetlands in south west Burkina Faso, gender-sensitivity in the project design appeared the target group is crucial for the the single most important success factor for a rice project's efficiency and its impact on project that improved infrastructure and reducing poverty. agronomic practices. Initially, the improved plots were allocated to ‘male heads of households’, Gender-sensitive design and while women were supposed to continue providing all the labor. Women were also implementation of agricultural water excluded from the Water Users Associations development and management projects, because membership was vested in the land including the creation of inclusive owner. Without their customary control over the criteria for WUAs, is a matter of gender output, women lost their motivation to cultivate. equity and a necessary condition for the Men generally failed to fulfill their infrastructure maintenance obligations. And this led to project to reach its productivity goals infrastructure decline and even partial (see Box 10.1.1). This is especially the abandonment of the ‘improved’ schemes. case in those areas or those farming types where approximately half the farm In later schemes, the allocation procedures decision-makers are women (that is, in changed at the initiative of women plot holders, their male kin, and male and female land chiefs. dual farming systems) and even more New plots were allocated first to existing plot crucial where women form the majority holders. Men were explicitly invited to apply for of farm decision-makers (see Box new rice plots. Women, however, were the 10.1.2). Increased and improved majority of new applicants. Membership was attention to gender in agricultural vested in the farm decision-makers. Women fulfilled their obligations of infrastructure projects in Africa, in particular, is likely maintenance work and reaped the benefits. to translate into immediate productivity gains, due to the region’s high ‘gender Source: Van Koppen 2000. intensity of production’ with women providing 80 per cent of the food crop and non-traditional agricultural export labor force ( Blackden and Bhanu, In male farming systems as found in 1999). northern Europe and South Asia, women generally work as unpaid family Strengthening women’s land and water laborers, and are excluded from farm tenure security, and access to decision-making. To enhance gender equity in these systems requires

3 addressing more deep-rooted gender keeping tends to be managed by men, while discrimination. Agricultural marketing cropping is managed by women (Safiliou 1994). Rice cultivation in wetlands in western Africa is cooperatives for women, such as those another example, where women are often the sponsored by SEWA (http://sewa.org) majority of farm decision-makers (Van Koppen in India, may be a highly effective way 2000). In Asia too, there are areas where women for women to undertake their own constitute the majority of farm decision-makers, income generating activities. The Uttar as in Nepal. Pradesh Sodic Lands II Project in India (Zwarteveen and Neupane 1996). 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 Box 10.1.3 TENANCY, SOCIO-SPATIAL women’s water user groups at sub- EXCLUSION AND WUA MEMBERSHIP village level (Kuriakose et al 2005). In Punjab, Pakistan tenants’ rights to join farmer Irrigation development projects often organizations (FO) vary depending on the nature of the tenancy arrangement. More ‘permanent’ include land titling components. In tenants long associated with a certain plot of land addition, these projects can recognise are often delegated the right to organizational and support women who are sole farm membership, though this remains the prerogative decision-makers as heads of households of the landlord, and is thus vulnerable to and who have to contribute labor inputs manipulation. Tenants whose arrangements vary more often (for example, annually) abstain from to meet land reclamation or maintenance joining the FO as it is considered a long-term requirements. The labor contribution is institutional arrangement incompatible with their especially important as this is often the rapid tenure turnover basis for acquiring land or water rights. Women may also be excluded from Spatial settlement patterns also matter for inclusion in FOs. In Punjab, residents of one WUA membership and the opportunities ‘additional settlement’ on the outskirts of the for effective participation and main village were forced to organize their own leadership and they may have limited formal FO when they were not permitted by access to agricultural extension. If main village farmers to join that organization. seclusion norms limit a public role for The new FO then forced the main village FO to allocate water fairly between the two parts of the women or even contact with non-family village. or non-local persons, especially if male, it is important that the project design Source: Kuriakose et al Forthcoming. ensures that female extension agents are on the staff of irrigation and agricultural agencies. Recognizing and responding to the multiple forms of land tenure and titling arrangements in farming systems helps Box 10.1.2 GENDER AND FARMING ensure that the project design supports SYSTEMS actual farm decision-makers (including women and tenants) rather than Female and dual farming systems are widespread in southern and eastern Africa where 50 - and in absentee landowners or male kin who some districts up to - 90 percent of the farms are may have fewer interests in agricultural female managed. This is due to off-farm production and irrigation scheme employment opportunities and male out- operation and maintenance (see Box migration, and to a long-standing cultural 10.1.3). division of farming activities in which livestock

4 have long been designing their own The starting point for water project means of water management for design is support for multiple-use water multiple purposes; avoidance of services that take into account total damage to the system, common needs of water users. This is especially when single-use systems are used important for women and the poor who for multiple purposes in an depend more upon public investments unplanned fashion (for example, than wealthier farmers. For the poor, the erosion from livestock uses); more unplanned use of ‘irrigation’ water for equitable and efficient impact by fisheries and livestock is also ensuring that poor people’s domestic particularly important. For women, and productive basic water needs are domestic uses of ‘irrigation’ water have met; and higher water productivity often been the major benefit of through optimal use of the resource. ‘irrigation’ projects. Water management planning based on multiple needs has  Modest Incremental Cost, though proven to have many benefits that are Attention to Management Issues is pro-poor and gender-equitable and Required. The basic water generate: technologies (storage, lifting, conveyance, and drainage) for  Improved Well-being in Areas of multiple water uses are similar to food, income, and health. Multi-use single-use schemes and , the way in systems are gender-friendly by which these technology components design as domestic uses are are assembled allows for water use recognized as a priority use, even in for various purposes. In this way, ‘irrigation’ settings. They address incremental costs for multiple-use health issues holistically, aiming at technologies may be low. However, incremental improvements in access management issues may be complex, to water for drinking. Such an involving participatory and needs- approach acknowledges that access based water planning and allocation to more water has important hygiene and other trade-offs, particularly and health effects, especially when between reserving water for daily combined with point-of-use water domestic and livestock uses, versus treatment to improve water quality allocating water for crop irrigation for drinking whether as part of purposes with rotational and season- formal drinking water supply based delivery. Differences among projects or in more generic water uses in water delivery timing and delivery projects. duration, quantity, and quality need to be taken into account for multiple-  Improved Sustainability and use management. However, one Ownership through: higher integrated Water User Association willingness to pay for services that avoids parallel committees for better meet people’s needs, ‘domestic’ uses, ‘irrigation’ and so especially when compared to on, for the same water resources ‘domestic-only’ schemes; used by the same households. strengthened ability to pay; stronger Multiple government departments ownership by communities, who are also involved and have to

5 address such issues as water quality Such participatory planning requires that arise in multiple-water use resources and can imply the following: planning environments.  At the plot or household level: Designing water supply to meet POLICY AND IMPLEMENTATION women’s and men’s productive and domestic uses (for example, home Box 10.1.4 GENDER MAINSTREAMING IN gardening by women; no night turns PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION or distributions in irrigation schemes; Inclusive water users association (WUA) joint titling of irrigated land). membership criteria have been developed as part of the Maharashtra Water Sector Improvement  At the project level: Designing Project in India, approved by the Bank’s Board special elements in ‘irrigation’ in 2005. In line with the State Irrigation Act schemes such as washing steps for 2005, WUAs in the project are mandated to have women members as part of the general body and laundry use; cattle entry points for executive committee. Gender and tribal livestock watering; year-round strategies exist for the project, following a reservoirs for cattle and domestic comprehensive social assessment undertaken for uses and providing year-round the project on gender, tribal and other issues. availability for such uses. Additionally, an Environment and Social Development Sub-Unit within the project has been set up to help ensure that social objectives  At the community or collective level: are achieved. Such attention to gender and social Including women and men in multi- vulnerability within the project cycle and project purpose WUAs (including all water implementation mechanisms is expected to yield uses); vesting membership in all good results on both social and economic outcomes. water users, and for agricultural water use: vesting membership with Source: World Bank Maharashtra Water Sector the farm decision-maker, irrespective Improvement Project. P084790. Project of gender and type of land tenure; Appraisal Document. 2005. ensuring convenient timings of meeting, transport, and venues; and establishing transparent and open Implications for gender; land tenure procedures in WUA meetings. forms; and multiple water needs should be assessed and considered from the  At the local-leadership level: beginning of the project in order to Including women and the poor in design holistically for women’s and decision-making bodies, such as men’s domestic and productive water WUA committees. In setting quotas, needs. This can best be done through gender composition should, at a participatory project planning and minimum, reflect the actual implementation to prevent elite capture proportion of women and men of the benefits of the project and allow farmers. Leaders from marginalized for project beneficiaries or their groups need to be supported and representatives to effectively voice their trained in their new roles (see needs, preferences, opportunities, and Box10.1.4). constraints.

6 Box 10.1.5 SOCIO-ECONOMIC initiates water supply provisions that STRATIFICATION AND ACCESS TO take poor people’s multiple water WATER FOR LIVESTOCK WATERING needs as the starting point. The An International Water Management Institute ‘irrigation’ sector can broaden its study in Pakistan found that socio-economic objectives in a similar way. This may level affected households’ access to water for lead to improved sustainability of livestock watering. Better-off households living systems. on larger farms were able to keep their animals in stalls on their home compound bathing and watering the animals with the same domestic  In female and dual farming systems, water the family used (that is, groundwater from gender-sensitive project design is a hand pumps, motor pumps and wells). Ninety- particularly important route to five percent of respondents from such achieving water productivity and households found water sources sufficient for their animals. In contrast, poorer households gender equity. (and those few households who lived near their fields further from the village) had to drive their  In male farming systems, varied animals to canal watercourses and distributaries interventions are required given for watering and bathing. Only 71 per cent of prevailing gender norms. Here such respondents found these water access arrangements satisfactory. Further, livestock use separate women’s organizations can of canal water is illegal and pollutes the be highly effective. distributary water for downstream domestic users. Notably, the traditional livestock pond  Land ownership as a membership held in common in each village is now being criterion for WUAs tends to exclude degraded by release of waste water and sewage by those households with private sources of poor and female farmers holding water . secondary tenancy; intra-household; or communal land rights. Such Source: Kuriakose et al Forthcoming. exclusion of water users can jeopardize the functioning of the association.

 Quota systems are an effective way LESSONS LEARNED of ensuring representation for  Women and men; adults and women’s interests in water decision- children; agriculturalists; making organizations. pastoralists; fishermen and women; or small scale entrepreneurs have different, multiple water needs, due RECOMMENDATIONS FOR to their diversified livelihoods. The PRACTITIONERS opportunities to meet these unmet  Provide for target group diversity water needs through multiple-use with an open, inclusive and needs- water services provision are still based design of the project without largely untapped ( see Box10.1.5). a priori assumptions about people’s water needs, and which enables the  For women and the poor, the non- target group to articulate its needs. irrigation uses of ‘irrigation’ water are often a priority. While WUAs  Base gender-sensitive design on rarely include all water users, the women’s and men’s multiple water domestic water sector increasingly

7 needs; on a sound understanding of and the targeting of female farmers the gender role in the farming in the delivery of agricultural system; and on targeting women services . farm decision-makers on the same basis as men farm decision-makers, at farm level, at community and REFERENCES CITED collective level, and in leadership Bakker, Margaretha, Randolph Barker, positions. Ruth S. Meinzen-Dick and Flemming Konradsen. 1999. Multiple Uses of  Ensure inclusive WUA membership Water in Irrigated Areas: A Case Study criteria, irrespective of gender and from Sri Lanka. SWIM Report 8. type of land titles Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute .  Set quotas in WUAs to ensure that leadership composition reflects, at Blackden, Mark and C. Bhanu. 1999. least, the gender division among Gender, Growth and Poverty Reduction: farmer members, and that general Special Program of Assistance for representation reflects equal gender Africa – Status Report on Poverty in composition. Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington DC.:. World Bank

INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES Haddad, L., J. Hoddinott, and H.  Water development and management Alderman (eds). 1997. Intra-household projects with participatory and Resource Allocation in Developing inclusive planning and design, Countries: Methods, Models and Policy. should provide for multiple water Baltimore: John Hopkins University needs, especially of poor women and Press for the International Food Policy men and include low-cost and Research Institute infrastructure for multiple uses; and financing earmarked for multiple-use Kuriakose, Anne T., Waqar A. Jehangir, application. and Mehmood ul-Hassan. Forthcoming. “Will the Diggi Go Dry? Multiple Uses  Support capacity-building for of Irrigation Water in Punjab.” Pakistan. members of marginalized groups and Society and Natural Resources. women to participate as members and leaders in WUAs. Kuriakose, Anne T. et al. 2005. “Gender Mainstreaming in Water Resources  Support capacity-building in water Management.” ARD Internal Paper. agencies to improve analytical skills Washington DC: World Bank. among staff; and to provide skills to assess and to develop pro-poor and Quisumbing, Agnes. 1996. “Male- gender-responsive agricultural water Female Differences in Agricultural management policies. Productivity: Methodological Issues and Empirical Evidence.” World  Support the recruitment of female Development. Vol. 24. No. 10. pp 1579- extension agents to sector agencies,

8 1595. Great Britain: Elsevier Science SELECTED READING Ltd Merrey, Douglas J., and Shirish Baviskar Safiliou, Constantina. 1988. “Farming (eds). 1998. Gender Analysis and Systems and Gender Issues: Implications Reform of Irrigation Management: for Agricultural Training and Projects.” Concepts, Cases and Gaps in Unpublished paper. Ministry of Knowledge. Proceedings of the Agriculture and Fisheries of the Workshop on Gender and Water. Netherlands and the International September 1997. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Agricultural Centre. Wageningen International Water Management Institute Safiliou, Constantina. 1994 “Agricultural Policies and Women Van Koppen, Barbara. 2002. “A Gender Producers.” In Gender, Work and Performance Indicator for Irrigation. Population in Sub-Saharan Africa, ed. Concepts, Tools, and Applications.” Aderanti Adepoju and Christine Research Report 59. Colombo: Sri Oppong, International Labour Lanka: International Water Management Organization. London: James Currey Institute and Heinemann Van Koppen, Barbara, Patrick Moriarty, Udry, Christopher, D. Hoddinott, H. and Eline Boelee. 2006. “Multiple-Use Alderman, and L. Haddad. 1995. Water Services to Advance the “Gender Differentials in Farm Millennium Development Goals.” Productivity: Implications for Household Research Report 98. International Water Efficiency and Agricultural Policy.” Management Institute. Colombo, Sri Food Policy. 20(5). Lanka: International Water Management Institute. Van Koppen, Barbara. 2000 “Wetland Improvement in Burkina Faso.” In Negotiating Water Rights, Bryan Bruns This Note was prepared by Barbara van and Ruth Meinzen-Dick. India: SAGE Koppen of IWMI and Anne T. Kuriakose, and reviewed by Ruth Meinzen-Dick of IFPRI and Eija Pehu.

WORLD BANK PROJECTS DISCUSSED

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.