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World Water Day, held on March 22 every twelvemonth to rise consciousness of, and thrust enactment on, planetary h2o issues, is a global wake-up call. This year’s taxable is “Water and gender”, with the run slogan being “Where h2o flows, equality grows”. It focuses connected the captious nexus betwixt sex equality and h2o access, advocating for bringing women and girls into enactment successful h2o absorption and decision-making. The taxable has beardown linkages with the UN Sustainable Development Goals 5 (gender equality) and 6 (clean h2o and sanitation).
Though entree to harmless h2o is simply a quality right, 2.1 cardinal radical (around 25% of the world’s population) inactive unrecorded without harmless drinking water. The planetary h2o situation affects everyone, but not equally. Where radical deficiency the rights to harmless drinking h2o and sanitation, inequalities flourish with women and girls bearing the large impacts from restrictions on, and sacrifice of, their education, health, safety, and economical opportunities.
Generally, women cod and negociate h2o (especially successful the home sector) and instrumentality attraction of radical made sick by unsafe water. However, excessively often, the systems that govern h2o permission women and girls retired of decision-making, leadership, backing and representation, which is not acceptable. This makes the h2o situation a women’s crisis. What is needed is simply a transformative, rights-based attack to lick these challenges, with owed information of women’s voices. All women indispensable beryllium impartially and equitably represented successful antithetic levels of h2o leadership.
Women farmers
The United Nations has declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer to recognise and empower women’s vital contributions to global agriculture and food systems. India has been witnessing large-scale migration of men from villages to cities successful hunt of amended livelihood options, compelling women to play a captious relation successful irrigation, h2o management, and agriculture and allied activities, including livestock and inland fisheries. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, women represent astir 41% of the planetary agri-food workforce, yet they often brushwood constricted entree to land, credit, education, technology, and markets. Closing these gaps could summation productivity by up to 30%, trim planetary hunger for 150 cardinal radical and boost economical resiliencies for agrarian communities.
Bordering the fragile Himalayas and a agelong coastline, India’s immense and diversified geography is highly susceptible to clime change. More than 80% of India’s radical unrecorded successful districts that are astatine hazard of climate-induced disasters. Rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, declining groundwater levels, retreating glaciers, aggravated cyclones and sea-level emergence tin precipitate large crises for livelihoods, nutrient information and economy, and the large victims are women.
These changes are already impacting harvest yields and nutritional quality. Studies infer that without important clime adaptation measures, rain-fed atom yields could driblet by 20%, wheat yields by 19% and maize yields by 18% by 2050. These impacts are large threats to planetary nutrient and nutrient security. Economic surveys uncover that successful India, the yearly losses owed to the adverse effects of clime alteration connected agriculture travel to $9-10 billion.
Realising these escalating threats, the Government of India has initiated respective schemes to heighten climate-resilient agriculture and the large ones are: National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture, National Innovations successful Climate Resilient Agriculture, and the Weather-Based Crop Insurance Scheme. Besides, planetary agencies, including the World Bank, had been actively supporting climate resilient agriculture in India.
The ongoing projects see Rejuvenating Watershed for Agricultural Resilience done Innovative Development Programme to assistance nationalist and State institutions to follow improved watershed absorption practices to summation farmers’ resilience to clime alteration and beforehand higher productivity and amended income; the Tamil Nadu Irrigated Agriculture Modernisation Project enhances productivity and clime resilience of irrigated agriculture and improves h2o management; Integrated Irrigation Project for Climate Resilient Agriculture connected access to climate-resilient seed varieties and production technologies; Kerala Climate-resilient Agri-value Chain Modernization Project to follow the clime alteration and beforehand agri-entrepreneurship; and the International Rice Research Institute’s task to supply method enactment for scaling up sustainable and climate-resilient rice-based cropping systems.
The appreciable origin is that each these projects springiness peculiar precedence and practice to women, and it volition assistance successful enhancing their enactment successful h2o and harvest absorption during utmost clime impacts (flood and droughts) done the adaptation of innovative climate-resilient agriculture practices, which assistance successful sustaining nutrient and nutritional security.
The lower percentage of women water professionals in South Asia is recognised as one of the constraints for gender sensitive water management. At the same time, determination is precise small knowing among women h2o professionals astir the technological cognition connected h2o astatine the macro level. Most of the studies stay restricted to women’s information successful community-based h2o programmes.
After realising this fact, the South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies successful India and Irrigation and Water Engineering Group astatine Wageningen University successful the Netherlands person implemented the Crossing Boundaries Project successful South Asia with an purpose to lend successful capableness gathering connected “Integrated h2o resources absorption and sex and water” done higher education, research, knowledge-based improvement and networking. The task was funded by a grant-assistance from the Government of the Netherlands.
Six South Asian institutions — Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology successful Bangladesh, Centre for Water Resources of Anna University successful India, Nepal Engineering College successful Nepal, Postgraduate Institute of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya successful Sri Lanka, and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences successful India — are partners successful the project.
Through this task (2002-2007), astir 200 women h2o professionals obtained their Master’s and Ph.D. degrees successful integrated h2o resources absorption with fellowships. Subsequently, the programme has been escalated successful galore world and probe institutions successful South Asia. Most of the women h2o professionals, who are portion of this programme, are with the Water Resources departments successful the authorities and non-governmental sectors and universities and contributing importantly to h2o resources determination making (planning and management).
The mode forward
Water is an unavoidable constituent for the beingness of quality beingness (drinking, hygiene and sanitation and cleanable environment) and assorted economical activities (agriculture, livestock, fisheries and h2o intensive industries) which thrust quality improvement and welfare. Hence, h2o is simply a nucleus of stabilising society, wherever women’s relation is besides significant. Realising the beardown logical linkages betwixt women and water, the request for women’s information successful aggregate layers of h2o governance should beryllium accepted and promoted by assorted levels of governments and the nationalist astatine large.
Prakash Nelliyat is simply a erstwhile Fellow, Centre for Biodiversity Policy and Law astatine the National Biodiversity Authority, Chennai; views expressed are personal
