Human rights and gender dimensions of water governance in Africa: Actors, norms and institutions

The project addresses the right to water for personal, domestic and livelihood uses and the right to equal participation in water governance in Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Unequal distribution of water sources and water related domestic duties, hamper women's social and economic rights in all the countries. The human right to water and gender equality is making its mark on international donor aid and national constitutions, laws and policies. In practice the principle of cost recovery overrides the concern of poor users' right to affordable water. National water policies lack downward accountability and women's participation is more about payment for water than influencing decisions. These shortcomings are ascribed to the state's failure in playing its infrastructural, regulatory and distributive role. In Kenya, private land tenure emerges as a significant bottleneck to investment in water and sanitation infrastructure. In Zimbabwe, the ZANU PF government?s use of water as a weapon of political control undermines good governance and rule of law in the water sector. In South Africa an entrenched water bureaucracy attempts to keep control of water for large scale commercial users. In Malawi, steps to ensure that the operations of donors and contracting NGO's are in consonance with the state's human rights obligations have not been taken. Furthermore, the gender neutral water laws and policies that have been put in place constitute a necessary but not sufficient means to ensure substantive equality. To infuse the human right to water with the demand of substantive equality international and national laws and policies must be informed by women's coping strategies and experiences as water users. The narrow definition of the human right to water in UNGA Resolution 64/292, including water for personal and domestic uses but excluding water for livelihood, overlooks the need to recognize and protect the community based water sources that poor women rely on for livelihood. Lack of measures aimed at gender-stereotypical norms underlying women's disproportionate responsibility for water related domestic chores is reflected in structural discrimination. Women belonging to marginalized groups for example disabled, elderly and displaced women are suffering from multiple disadvantages that must be addressed.

Democratization, good governance, sustainable use and broadened access to resources are concerns that have informed land and water reforms in Africa. Despite frequent references to rights-based approaches to development in general, empirical research iden tify a lacking appreciation of women's water needs and uses and their right to have a say in institutions governing access. The aim of the project is to lay an empirical and legal foundation for appropriate frameworks and strategies for inclusion of the h uman rights and gender equality dimension in water governance. It combines empirical research of water uses and management on the ground with the study of laws and policies developed at international and national level in four African countries.Within an interdisciplinary framework it seeks an understanding of the outcome of water governance processes with a view to how human rights are defined, mobilized, transformed or resisted by different actors, such as governments, donors and NGO's. A key question i s whether and under what conditions decentralized water governance systems facilitates the inclusion and protection of women's water rights. Cases from Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe sheds light on these processes through the lens of women's par ticipation as both a tool to ensure that gendered uses of water are considered, and as part of the overall right to participation in decision-making. The research teams will collect and synthesize field-evidence on three related themes: the gendered natur e of access to and use of water, the effects of women's participation towards including these in decision/policy-making, and the conditions for women's participation in local institutions.The case studies will reflect how women negotiate their position as water users and decision makers under differing political and legal contexts, the degree of government commitment through incorporation of human rights, scale of donor influence, strength of women's organizations.